


Boxing With Shadows

by Cinis



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, Politics, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinis/pseuds/Cinis
Summary: Summoned by the Crown, Shauna Vayne reluctantly returns to the Demacian capital after years away. She can't quite tell what she dislikes the most about the ordeal - the Noxian diplomatic delegation, the nebulous suggestion of the threat of dark magic that the Noxians brought with them, or the patricide councilman Fiora Laurent.





	1. Vayne I

Duck, pivot, roll, shoot.

Crack.

The silver bolt lodged in the creature's chest, shattering a rib on the way to its heart.

Amidst a cloud of dust, Vayne stood, loading another bolt into her crossbow.

One more vampire laid to rest. Were there more?

Calm, she scanned the street.

Around her, nothing moved. That didn't mean anything. The dead were good at staying still.

For the time being, the area seemed clear.

At her feet were three piles of gravedirt. Three beasts laid to rest.

There'd been four murders before her arrival – more than she'd expect from three vampires. Not beyond reason though. Had she gotten them all then? If nothing else, vampires were communal. They tended to fight, and die, together. If there was a fourth, it either would have joined its fellows to leverage their numbers, or it would have fled.

It was unlikely it would attack now.

But Vayne hadn't survived so long as Demacia's Night Hunter by letting her guard down.

Slower than before, she studied her surroundings.

To her eyes, everything was tinted red – a side effect of her glasses, enchanted to better her vision in the dark. They'd saved her life more than once.

On either side of her were free-standing wood houses, ordinary constructions for a rural northern town. She was standing in the middle of the main street, a glorified dirt track. Several more houses stood adjacent to the ones nearest to her. The town had little else. All around were mid-spring cornfields, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Where would a vampire hide?

The alleys between houses?

Methodically, Vayne paced the street, peering into every alley, checking under and behind wagons and barrels.

The sun was beginning to light the horizon by the time she was satisfied.

Vayne felt herself sag as tension ebbed out of her.

Daylight was the closest thing there was to safety.

Three vampires. A good hunt.

It was time to sleep.

Without adrenaline fueling her, exhaustion gnawed at every muscle. Even though the town was small, she'd had to spend the entire night flushing the creatures out.

Would it have been more effective to drum the townspeople up into a mob?

No. Mobs were impossible to control. Mobs meant civilian casualties – an acceptable price to pay, sometimes, but never preferred.

Vayne shook her head slightly, as if the physical act could chase away her thoughts. She could debrief herself once she'd gotten some rest.

The town inn was at the exact other end of the main street from where she'd finished her search.

Typical.

Someday, she thought, someday she'd plan her hunt to end conveniently. Thankfully though, the settlement was small and it took very little time cross it when she wasn't checking and double checking every shadow.

The town inn was an inn in only the loosest sense of the word. It was actually the house of a man who had a second room with a bed in it and a door that lead outside. Small towns rarely had enough passing travelers to warrant a true inn.

It wasn't as nice as her apartments in the citadel, but it was far better than dirt.

Vayne let herself into the room she'd rented, took off her boots, and then collapsed into the bed.

Sleep came near instantly.

"Shauna Vayne!"

Vayne's eyes flew open, her hand already moving towards the knife she kept at her belt.

"Shauna Vayne, in the name of the King, the Crown, the State and-

Vayne pinched her nose as she tried to tune the rest of the crier's formulaic summons out. How had the court even found her this far from the capital? And what did they want?

Not bothering to put her boots back on, still half-asleep, Vayne heaved herself up out of bed and staggered across the dirt floor to the door. When she opened the door, nearly slammed the messenger in the face with it. If she had, she wouldn't have been particularly sorry. But as it was, she hadn't, and that meant she could get it all over with that much faster. "I am Shauna Vayne," she mumbled.

It was so bright outside. So very bright. Just before noon, judging from the shadows. How much sleep had she gotten? Not nearly enough.

Speaking loudly but not shouting anymore, the messenger, dressed in dirt-stained white and gold-trimmed blue, started to repeat himself. "Shauna Vayne, in the name of-

Vayne waved a hand. "Just get on with it."

Thankfully, the messenger didn't try to argue with her. "House Vayne requests your presence in the capital with all due speed," he said.

Vayne was speaking before she remembered the courier likely wouldn't have an answer for her. "Why?"

Just as she'd thought, the messenger shrugged. "The message is only for you to arrive quickly."

Vayne nodded. "Thank you," she said. She closed the door, turned around, walked back to the bed, and went back to sleep.

* * *

Unlike the backwater highways Vayne had traveled for so long, the road into the city was broad, paved, and damnably crowded.

People. People everywhere. All kinds of people. People pushing and shoving and shouting and not getting out of her way.

Vayne grimaced. Beneath her, sensing her frustration, her horse fidgeted. Idly, she reached out and set a hand on the mare's neck. Her horse had carried her across Demacia and back more times than she cared to count. An animal was not a person, but she still felt some guilt at upsetting one that had served her so well.

She was mounted, for Tread's sake – shouldn't the men milling about in a mass outside the walls move aside?

Patience – she was good at patience, when it came to stalking her quarry. She was bad at patience when it came to pointless delays. And this delay was indeed pointless. It had never taken her this long to get into the city before. Adding to her annoyance, the day was uncomfortably warm and moisture in the air made the humidity oppressive.

Leaning forward, Vayne squinted towards the gates, trying to catch a glimpse of the blockage.

The gates… The gates were closed?

"Clear the way! Clear the way!"

Vayne twisted in the saddle, looking for the crier. He was some distance behind her on the road. Like her, he was mounted, but unlike her, he was moving forward as the bystanders made way for him. He wore the gold and blue livery of the State and he was flanked by two mounted guards. Behind them was a carriage, drawn by a team of horses, black, all of them, black like the carriage itself.

At first, Vayne thought her eyes were deceiving her but, no, there it was in sharp red paint on the dark wood of the carriage - the double headed axe of Noxus.

Observing the crowd, she could see that, for once, she shared something with them. Unease. For what reason would the State bring the enemy so deep into Demacia?

"Clear the way! Clear the way!"

The entourage was closer now, close enough that Vayne found herself nudging her horse to the side of the road, then off of it, to allow the crier, the guards, and the carriage to pass. Following the first carriage were several more of the same sort, black as well, curtains drawn, signed with the sigil of the enemy.

The crowd, which before had buzzed loudly with chatter, went silent as the ominous column went by.

Even when the column had passed, for a ways in its wake, the Demacian peasants stayed cowed.

Vayne, on the other hand, was not as easily shocked into idleness. Seeing the carriages had cleared the road, she urged her horse forward, briskly trotting behind. Traveling in this way, it didn't take long to reach the long shadows of the citadel walls.

The area immediately surrounding the closed gates was clear, cordoned off by soldiers in the distinctive heavy plate of the Dauntless Vanguard. Strange that they weren't out in the field on the front lines. And with Noxians so deep in the heart of the country? Something must have happened in the east. Something good? Bad?

Vayne had little interest in the eternal struggle at the border, and no time for it either. Black magic recognized no state lines, no political squabbles. Noxus invested nothing in sanctioning it, true, but the war was the duty of others. Her duty lay elsewhere.

Guessing that there was no place for her beyond the cordon of soldiers, Vayne came to a halt just at the very edge of the ring while the column proceeded on. Mounted, she had a good view of the makeshift parade ground.

The soldiers were stretched out to form a large semicircle around the closed gate. There was a cluster of them at the gate itself, surrounding a wooden platform. The platform had only two occupants – a hulking man in the same heavy plate uniform as the soldiers, save for a deep Demacian blue scarf, and a slightly smaller man in golden armor.

The scarf – the bigger man was the commander of the Dauntless Vanguard. Vayne frowned as she searched her mind for his name. He was a Crownguard, wasn't he? Gareth maybe?

And the smaller man – his golden helm was topped by a flourish of high-reaching spikes resembling a crown with a bright blue gem in its center. Jarvan. Which Jarvan though? The prince or the king? Even if Vayne were close enough to see his face, she doubted she'd be able to tell them apart. The court doctors were skilled enough at their craft that, when last she'd seen the king, he'd had the body of a much younger man, though perhaps not the mind of one. His son was his spitting image.

Flanked by the Crownguard commander instead of the seneschal though, if Vayne were to guess – and she hated guessing – she'd guess that the smaller man was Jarvan IV.

With all the precision of servants who spent more time rehearsing than working, the Noxian carriage drivers brought their teams into position, creating a wedge shaped formation behind the first carriage. Once in position though, no one moved. It was as if they were waiting for a signal.

A shadow passed overhead. Driven by instinct, Vayne reached for the small crossbow she kept on her saddle. Driven by instincts of their own, the soldiers near her tightened their grips on their halberds.

Vayne was many things, but she wasn't a fool. Slowly she pulled her empty hand away from her weapon and then raised both hands in a placating gesture. The soldiers relaxed, but she could feel them continuing to watch her for any sign of aggression. At least they were good at their jobs.

The shadow that had startled Vayne and, judging from the murmur amongst the crowd, everyone else as well, continued to move back and forth, back and forth, circling. Tilting her head up, Vayne squinted at whatever it was. Against the glare of the overcast sky, it was hard to make out. From what she could tell, it had wings too small for its body – surely sorcery must be keeping it airborne.

Vayne's brow furrowed.

She knew what the shadow was.

Galio, Durand's sentinel. He'd arrived some years ago at the citadel, if memory served, and requested to serve Demacia like his creator and his construct brethren before him.

His creator, to whom he'd owed his duty, was dead, and most of his construct brethren were now dust in burned out border towns.

He wasn't made from black magic, but his existence, his sentience, had always bothered Vayne. He was stone, and stone was not meant to move and to think for itself. What was more, if he had failed his maker, what reason was there to think he would not fail Demacia as well?

But the decision to make use of him was not Vayne's, it was the Crown's.

After a final, low, pass above the crowd, Galio swooped down to land near the foot of the platform, between it and the carriages.

The horses nearest his landing shied away, but didn't bolt. Either the horses or their drivers must have been exceptionally well trained.

In a booming voice that recalled gravel grinding down at the beginning of an avalanche, Galio spoke – "Kneel. For the Exemplar of Demacia, His Majesty, Prince Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth."

Well, now she had confirmation. It was the prince.

Around her, everyone, save the soldiers, bent the knee to their sovereign. Brought up within the citadel, Vayne found herself dismounting so that she too could give her prince his due.

For a moment, across all the crowd, there was a respectful silence.

And then it was broken by a bang and a clatter.

Without rising, Vayne looked up. Though her view was partially blocked now by the soldiers of the Dauntless Vanguard, she could see some of the proceedings through the gaps in their line.

One of the Noxian carriages, the one at the front, had opened – violently, it seemed.

A man emerged, huge, possibly as big as the Crownguard on the platform. Although he carried no weapon, he wore full armor, dark plate accented with a deep crimson cloak. Part of Vayne wondered how the horses, even as a team, had managed to carry him. His bulk, clad in thick steel, seemed almost too large to move under its own power, much less be dragged across the country. The carriage seemed to rise up as he exited.

His voice was nearly as deep, and just as booming, as Galio's. "Noxus," he said, articulating every syllable in a way that belied rage, "Kneels to no one."

Behind him, a woman stepped from the carriage. Even from a distance, Vayne could tell that the woman moved with the sort of grace that would make her beautiful no matter what she wore, what she looked like. What she wore though, was, in this case, beautiful. It was a black dress with red peeking out in all the right places to draw the eye to her slim, statuesque figure. Standing next to the man, she was very nearly his height. Rich auburn curls cascaded down her shoulders, moving just enough in the breeze to remain natural but also tidy.

The man glanced over at the woman, as if daring her to speak, then turned back towards the prince. "And I do not kneel to you."

The woman laid a hand on the man's armored shoulder. He immediately pulled away from her. She addressed the platform as well. "I hope you'll excuse the general," she said. "In Noxus, the act of kneeling means something quite different than it does here – we would not ask your envoys to kneel and we would expect you to show the same courtesy."

Her voice was honey in a way that reminded Vayne of mesmeric sorcery. There was no magic at play here though, at least, not that she could sense. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

The prince lifted his hand, gesturing, allowing the assembled to rise.

Vayne stood with the rest. Her view was still not as good as it had been when she was mounted, but it was better now. Jarvan had advanced to the edge of the platform, though he hadn't stepped down.

"Demacia would not invade three peaceful nations at once and then send envoys begging for peace," Jarvan said. Sporadic, nervous, laughter broke out across the crowd. "Where are the rest of you? We will not allow any hiding cowards within our walls."

Hulking, heavy, proud – above all else, Vayne would describe the Noxian general as angry. "Noxians are not cowards," he spat.

Dignified, Jarvan said nothing, only waited.

The woman looked towards the carriage she'd come from and said something far too quiet to be overheard. And then she, too, waited.

Vayne could feel the tension of the crowd. The Noxians were surrounded, by the best of all Demacia's soldiers. And around the soldiers were the men of Demacia, the backbone of the nation. Would the Noxians defy the prince – defy the Crown, the very State?

The lead carriage shifted – someone else was there, coming out now – another woman.

The first thing Vayne noticed was her hair. Red. Almost unnaturally red – or perhaps that was a trick of the light and the way it contrasted against her black leathers. She was tall, but not quite as tall as the other two Noxians. She moved with the same grace as the first woman, but she was wreathed in the sort of stillness that could turn into violence in a heartbeat.

Vayne knew a killer when she saw one.

So the man was a general, the representative of Noxian power. The first woman was some sort of a courtier, a diplomat, meant to speak for the general. And this other woman? An assassin. There was no doubt in Vayne's mind of that. An assassin who wasn't even trying to hide. Why?

The red-haired woman raised a pale hand and lazily dropped it.

Each of the other carriages opened at her signal. Noxians filed out of them, an entire entourage, all dressed in black and red and most looking less like servants and more like soldiers.

Vayne wouldn't fault them for their poor disguises. Demacia would never trust them, even if they'd hid themselves better.

When all the company had come to attention behind her, the assassin strolled over to stand in front of the general and the diplomat. She stood relaxed, lazy, to the point of being disrespectful. Her voice was an amused drawl. "Happy?"

The prince didn't deign to respond to the barb. "Demacia welcomes you all," he said. "And we look forward to the coming days as we discuss a Noxian surrender and a return of all lands and prisoners."

The redhead scoffed, then turned her back to the prince. Without pausing to speak to either of her companions, she climbed back into their carriage. The diplomat and the general, neither one looking pleased in the least, shared a look, then followed the assassin's lead. Behind them, the rest of the Noxian party also returned to their carriages.

At the platform, Jarvan moved to the side where a horse waited for him. As he mounted, servants in the blue and gold of Demacia hastily pulled the platform aside to clear the way through the gates.

The Crownguard commander remained on foot. Vayne sincerely doubted any horse could carry him with all his bulk.

Once the prince and his attendants came in order, Galio, who had remained as a statue throughout the exchange, rose again to the air. Beating his too-small wings in a mockery of flight, he soared up, up, up, over the wall.

Dust shuddered down from the ramparts as the massive gates, heavy enough to defend a city, began to open. Galio pushed first one out, then the other. Only when both lay fully open did the column advance at the slow speed of parade. The carriages with their escort filed back into a line and one by one passed into the city. Behind them came the Dauntless Vanguard, and behind them – finally then came the crowds who'd been waiting for entrance at the main gate for the better part of the morning.

That Demacians would be halted in their work for the sake of Noxian ceremony – ridiculous.

In a single smooth motion, Vayne mounted her horse again. Noble-born, she'd learned to ride when she was young, though, then, she'd learned to ride as a girl rides, careful not to disturb meticulously arranged skirts. An impractical skill for anything but fetching a husband – and dying horribly in the field.

But then her father, her mother, both her older brothers – they'd all died.

No. They hadn't died. That made it sound as if they'd come to a natural end, old, at the end of their allotted time.

They'd been killed.

Vayne's grip on the reins in her hands tightened. Her horse, no doubt weary of her habits, tossed its head slightly, as if asking what she thought she was doing. With a deep breath, she relaxed.

Ten. She'd been ten. The witch had torn apart her father's conciliar guard. She hadn't touched them, just waved a hand and some force had ripped them limb from limb. Like it was nothing.

And it had been nothing, to the witch. Monsters respected nothing of life.

And now Vayne held the twisted un-lives of those black forces in equal contempt.

After the witch had killed her immediate family, control of their house had passed from her father to his younger brother.

Abraham Vayne was not a bad man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was not her father and he never attempted to fill that hole in her life.

Perhaps if Vayne had shown any interest in a noble marriage her uncle would have arranged it for her, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd thrown herself into eradicating the dark, unnatural, things that roamed the Demacian night. What remained of her family had stood by. For a time, they'd watched with some concern, occasionally tried to guide her back to a more traditional path, but then there'd come a time when they gave up and ignored her.

Which made Abraham's message to return so unusual.

Vayne hadn't lived in the capital for over a decade. She'd attended family functions only a handful of times in that span of years, always be choice, never by summons.

Was this summons triggered by the Noxian arrival?

Were Vayne's skills needed?

Questions, questions, questions – and she'd have no answers until she presented herself to her uncle.


	2. Vayne: II

For a time, Vayne followed the parade as it wound its way through the streets of the capital. With the way the crowds had lined up and blocked off every cross street and alley, she had little choice. As they approached the palace, however, the great mass of humanity began to thin. At the first opportunity, Vayne turned away from the column and onto a smaller street.

It had been a decade since she'd lived here, yes, but she still knew the city like the back of her hand. In the course of her years, she'd found that if she could navigate a place in the night, finding her way in the day was a simple matter.

The farther she went from the march, the emptier the streets became. Even though she knew why the city was so quiet, it still made her uneasy.

Demacian parades were strange things. They were ceremonious disruptions of the structured life of the city. In a way they were symbols of the State and the Crown, but in another way, they were the antithesis of the Measured Tread.

Not, of course, that Vayne put too much stock in the Tread.

It was a good book, but it was not the book that guided her life. It contained ideals and Vayne was a woman of practicality. The Measured Tread wasn't of much use for hunting werewolves.

Vayne sighed.

There weren't werewolves here. Or, if there were, they were very far from home. Unlike vampires, werewolves didn't fare well in densely populated cities.

No, in this place there were witches, black sorcerers, vampires, and bureaucrats – a special kind of vampire, unique to the upper echelons of Demacian society.

Again, Vayne sighed. The city was far from her favorite place to be.

But, in its favor, it was a beautiful place. Strict building codes meant that the buildings within the walls were made from white stone, often marble, and even stricter cleaning laws kept those white facades spotless. Towers rose up across the city, spires of nobility that pierced the heavens and glowed a soft rose at sunrise and sunset.

There were a few other cities in Demacia with the same grandeur, though they couldn't quite match the splendor of the capital. The vast majority of settlements in the state were more rural hamlets of the sort Vayne had been hunting in before she received her summons. There were times, in the moments of quiet peace between hunts, when Vayne would imagine herself old, retiring to one of those sleepy towns instead of to her family's estates in the city.

And then she would laugh at herself for her foolishness.

Even if she lived that long, she doubted she'd ever be so old and tired she'd willingly give up the hunt.

But.

Vayne shook her head. Her return was making her sentimental. She could indulge, for now, but it would be a poor choice to allow it to become a habit. Her visit was a visit, nothing more. Soon she'd be on the road again, doing her work, just as the inhabitants of the city did theirs.

Every Demacian had their place.

And so too did every building and every institution have its purpose.

Built on the coast of the Conqueror's Sea, the capital city lay on a flat plain. The roads were level throughout, but the architects had created a sense of elevation by locating the tallest buildings, the towers of the great noble houses, towers that seemed to scrape the sky, in the city center. The Vayne estates were located here, along with the estates of the other great houses, the Buvelle, the Crownguard, the Spiritmight, the Laurent, and, of course, the Lightshield.

The Noxian column would be going to the Lightshield estate, the very heart of the city, the seat of Demacia, the Crown, the State. The Noxian column - with its assassin, with its soldiers.

But the Dauntless Vanguard surely would have already taken all appropriate precautions. They must have known the composition of the convoy before it came to the gates. Even with good horses traveling at a good clip, it would have taken at least a week to travel from the border to the capital, and throughout the journey the Noxians would have been under an escort. A heavy escort. One meant not only to contain the enemy ambassadors but also to protect them from good Demacians who understood their duty.

And if there were witches among the Noxians?

As a child, Vayne's father had always assured her that in the capital, nothing could harm her. Within its walls, surrounded by the vigilant guards who patrolled the streets, she was safe.

He'd been wrong.

Were the Dauntless Vanguard and the bodyguards of the king, the Demacian Elite Guard, any better than the men who'd been killed protecting Vayne's family? Demacia waged its never ending war against Noxus in the east, never winning. What proof was there that Demacian soldiers were any better than their Noxian counterparts?

Despite what the Measured Tread said, the man who fought for the better cause had no guarantee of victory. In Vayne's experience, he didn't even have a guarantee of peace when he died.

But the Lightshields had better guards than the Vaynes. Even in Demacia, for all its justice, power bought safety and the Lightshields, the very embodiment of the State, were the pinnacle of power.

Traveling through the near empty city, Vayne supposed it all came down to faith.

For her part, she had little faith in the guards who greeted her at the gates of her family estate and lead her horse away. Impeccably dressed in the red and silver of her house, they were each no more and no less than their function – just like so many others in Demacia. They'd failed her once before and she learned from her mistakes.

Climbing the broad white steps up towards the towering spire that was the main building of the Vayne estate in the city, she paused at the threshold of her childhood home.

It was a strange thing, coming home after so much time away. Every time she returned, something else caught her eye, something that nagged at her mind as being not quite right, not quite good.

This time it was the front door.

The door was a gaudy affair – no door was ever meant to be painted bright red, and the silver crest emblazoned across its front did nothing to improve it in Vayne's eyes. But such was the custom.

Customs, of course, were the backbone of the State. Tradition held pride of place in every Demacian heart, and for good reason. Demacia was what it was, had survived and flourished for so long, because in every generation Demacia's men respected their forbearers and continued what they'd begun. Like a tree from a seed, the State grew strong, but only with unending care.

Some customs, however, were more meaningful than others.

Nevertheless, they were what they were. To allow one to slip away was to tempt losing the rest.

Vayne didn't knock on the door, she opened it. She was a member of the family and a senior one at that – her father had been its head before he was killed. No matter how long she'd spent away, no matter how distasteful she found the decorations, it was the one and only place she called home.

After passing through a small entryway, the grand hall of the estate took up the entire first floor of the tower. A massive circular chamber with a high ceiling, the floor was a colorful mosaic, divided into twelve sections, one for each chapter of the Measured Tread, all centered around the family crest. Grand stained glass windows depicting the Virtues of the State bathed the room in sunlight at every hour of the day.

As a child, Vayne had always wondered at how the room always had light when, upon walking outside and down the steps, it seemed she was immediately covered by the shadows cast by neighboring buildings.

As an adult, she knew that the room always had light because, in addition to already being some twenty feet off the ground, the family allowed no buildings within a half mile to rise above two stories.

Still, Vayne's step slowed as she crossed the room. Even knowing the workings of the architecture, some of her childhood awe for the building remained. That the spectacle had been carefully orchestrated via draconian building codes didn't diminish the majesty of experiencing it.

She was halfway to the white marble spiral staircase at the far end of the room when she heard her name.

"Shauna!"

Vayne turned. When was the last time she'd been called that? Perhaps when she'd last been here in the capital? Out in the rural trails of the countryside, all that mattered was that she was a Vayne – perhaps the only Vayne the commoners would ever meet.

The man who'd called her name was short and portly. His long hair, tied back with a crimson ribbon, had long ago gone grey and then silvered. For all his age though, there was a distinct bounce in his step. If he was anything as Vayne remembered, that bounce belied more energy than was properly good for him.

Vayne nodded to the steward of the estate. "Quincey," she greeted.

"You were supposed to be here a week ago," Quincey complained. "A week!"

Vayne bristled at the censure. "I came as quickly as possible." Quincey had served her family for longer than she'd been alive and he was one of the few men who could rebuke her, and other members of the house, freely. It would be strong to say that she didn't like him, but he certainly wasn't one of her favorite people. In the days after her father's death and her own attainment of majority, Quincey had been one of the few in the household still concerned with her marriage prospects.

He'd been an annoyance, to say the least, her urge to avoid him had never really abated.

"Where is my uncle?" Vayne asked. Hopefully she could exit the conversation as quickly as possible by attending to her duty.

"His Grace is at the palace," Quincey answered. "Like you should be. Right now." He'd come within a few feet of her now, and he was frowning fiercely. "But not dressed like that… that will never do…"

Suddenly self-conscious, Vayne looked down at herself.

There was no need for her to be self-conscious. Her clothes were traveling clothes functional, well-made, and, miracle of miracles, clean.

"You're wearing pants," Quincey lamented.

Vayne scowled. She'd passed her thirtieth year several months prior. She was far too old to be putting up with Quincey's nagging. "I'll change," she said, "Into something else. My rooms are as I left them, yes?"

"You hardly own any dresses," Quincey said. It was an answer, in its own way.

Turning back towards the stairway, Vayne began to walk away from the steward.

Though she could hear him voicing some sort of protest, he didn't follow her. Unfortunately, she had no doubt he'd be waiting for her when she came back down.

The daughter of the former head of the clan, and the niece of its current patriarch, Vayne's rooms were nearly at the top of the tower. As she climbed the seemingly never ending staircase, she wondered – if she hadn't chosen her path, if she'd spent her life as the wife of a noble, would she have turned thirty and still been able to take the stairs? Or would she have resorted to the mage-powered lifts that so many others used to go from floor to floor of the house? Would she be reliant on magic to navigate her daily life?

A road not taken.

Unlike the front door of the tower, the door to Vayne's quarters was simple and subdued – dark wood, metal fittings. The only decoration was a white rune painted just above the handle. Algiz. Protection. She'd put it there herself when she was eleven, carefully drawing her brush across the cold iron as she squinted at the tome of Freljordian lore she'd taken from the library at the College.

Pausing, Vayne drew a finger across the faded paint. She shook her head. Yet again, she was indulging sentiment.

Wasting no more time, she opened the door and stepped into her rooms.

No dust at all – the servants had been cleaning while she was away.

She hated that they did that. It made it impossible to know if there had been any intrusions in her absence. Thankfully, dust wasn't the only way indicator of disturbance.

After briefly scanning the front room for anything too out of place, Vayne advanced to the great red carpet that stretched across most of the room's floor. She bent down, picked up the edge, and rolled it back.

All across the wood floor that the rug covered was a great crimson sigil. Though she'd been the one to lay it, staring for too long at the way the lines – the not-quite-lines – wove in and out and amongst one another made Vayne slightly queasy. But she didn't have to stare at the thing to make use of it.

Kneeling, Vayne placed a hand against one of the outermost lines of the emblem. Unlike the floor on which it lay, the sigil was warm to the touch.

Vayne let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. There'd been no unnatural intrusions in the years since she'd last stayed here.

It was good to be home.

Taking her sweet time, Quincey be damned, Vayne strolled to her bedroom. The servants had brought up her bags and left them in a neat pile at the foot of the lavish four-poster bed. Good. It had taken her years of coming and going and complaining at every step to teach them not to disturb her possessions.

Her bags, however, didn't hold any clothes in the style of the court, so she left them where they lay and moved to her wardrobe instead.

True to Quincey's complaint, there were only a handful of dresses in it – not that Vayne had any intention of wearing a dress. Even if she were the sort to feel comfortable in such clothes, she'd choose trousers just to spite him.

The outfit she pulled from the wardrobe was simple but elegant. Blue pants a little too tight to be comfortable or practical, a white shirt that showed dirt entirely too easily, and a blue jacket a touch too heavy for the heat and humidity of the coast. One of the convenient things about the way Demacia worshipped tradition was that the fashions rarely changed, and when they did, the changes were small things. It made it easier to pick up the noble mantle when she returned to the city, and then set it aside again when she left.

Mostly dressed, Vayne pulled a silver necklace from a small box on her vanity. Demacia drowned in gold, but she'd always found silver matched her skin better. She thought perhaps she'd gotten it from her mother – in any case, she'd gotten most of her jewelry from her mother.

A brush, several minutes, and a handful of pins later saw Vayne's long black hair more or less in order.

At times she considered cutting it for the sake of her own sanity, as well as practicality in battle, but she always chose not to. On hunts she could tie it back well enough that it stayed put and out of the way, and, in the rest of her life – what little of it there was that wasn't consumed in the hunt – when it was tidy and under control, Vayne enjoyed the way her hair looked.

Vayne examined herself in the mirror. Her clothes were good. Necklace, hair – ring, she should have a ring. Calloused fingers dipped back into her jewelry box and pulled out two rings, both silver. One was worked to show two wolves, both at each other's throat. The other was set with rubies and the metal curved into the crest of house Vayne. A single arrow, upright, pointing towards the sky. The arrow of truth.

Once more, Vayne checked her appearance. Satisfactory.

Wait.

Vayne grimaced and removed her red tinted glasses. She was so used to wearing them she'd forgotten she had them on. Immediately, the world softened into a blur. Groping near blindly, she pulled open a drawer in her vanity and extracted a pair of uncolored glasses. Doing her best not to disturb her hair, she slid them on. The world sharpened again.

Now she was ready.

Sparing one last, longing, gaze at her comfortable traveler's wear, now a shapeless heap on the floor of her room, Vayne pulled on a pair of dark grey boots and bloused her pants into them.

The sooner she got to the palace, the sooner she could leave.

Just as she'd predicted, Quincey was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

Before the steward could say anything, Vayne cut in. "He's at the palace, you said?"

For once refraining from commenting on her appearance, Quincey nodded. "Your escort is waiting outside."

Using the same agility that kept her alive on hard hunts, Vayne slipped past the elderly man as quickly as she could. "Thank you, Quincey. That will be all."

Behind her, Vayne could hear Quincey sigh loudly.

On the white steps outside the tower, four guards in the livery of the house stood at attention. Vayne spared them a glance, but said nothing to them. She didn't have to. They knew their jobs. They would walk with her the mile or so to the palace of the Lightshields and their presence would get her past the gates with far fewer questions asked than if she were to present herself alone. And, were some danger to arise, she supposed they would do their best to protect her.

As she headed towards the northwestern boulevard that lead from her family's estate to the palace, Vayne heard the soldiers of her escort fall into step – two beside her and two behind her.

However long it had been since she'd last been home, it had been even longer since she'd been to the palace. Before her father had been killed, she'd gone to the palace nearly every week. Whenever she'd had a day without lessons, her father had taken her to court to see the world she'd join when she turned sixteen.

Without her father though, and without any sense of a future within the walls of the court, her visits had grown few and far between. By the time she was eighteen, she'd lost all interest in the place. There was nothing for her there. The skills she needed to hone were best trained at the College and in the fields surrounding the barracks. The contacts who would guide her hunts were scattered across the city, across the country. The doors that could be opened with the prestige of nobility were already open to her on account of her own name. She needed no one else's.

Ahead, the palace loomed large, an enormous compound ringing a tower so great that it cast a long shadow even though the sun was near its noontime zenith. It was as near to the exact center of the city as its builders could manage. Had the State come before the Lightshields or had the Lightshields come before the State? A question without an answer. The two were the same thing.

Just as Vayne had predicted, the guards at the gate allowed her to pass, her whose face they didn't recognize, on account of her escort. They asked for her name and when she gave it they were satisfied. As she walked past the blue and gold soldiers, Vayne sincerely hoped that security elsewhere within the palace compound was better. Her escort remained outside.

Immediately behind the gates was a large parade ground, entirely paved in white stone so that it shone brilliantly in the midday sun. Often, the parade ground lay empty, far too large a space to have any use aside from ceremony. Today though, it was full with a crowd of nobles, covering the white ground in a sea of blue and gold.

Perhaps the guards were letting nearly anyone through the front gates today. Perhaps they were not actually incompetent.

With all the confidence of a woman who'd spent a decade of her life there, Vayne strode through the swell of the crowd, ascended the steps to the palace proper, and made her way into the columned nave of the entrance. Unlike the parade ground outside, the palace interior was nearly empty, save for guards posted every ten feet. If memory served, the room, gorgeous on the same level as the Vayne's great hall, was used for nothing except impressing the majesty of Demacia upon all who meant to enter the palace. On either side of the nave, past the great grand gilded columns that stretched some forty feet into the air, there were extravagant chapels to the Virtues. At the end of the nave, at the crossing of the transept, stood a golden statue of the first Lightshield King – Garen Lightshield I.

Ah. Yes. That was the name of the Crownguard commander. Garen. The Crownguards had named their heir after the first king – because of course they had.

Not that Vayne could claim much better. Shauna was an old family name, though whose family she wasn't sure. The noble houses intermarried almost obsessively. Her father had been a Vayne, her mother a Spiritmight, and she'd never had enough interest in genealogy to care beyond that. There had likely been at least one Shauna Lightshield at some point in Demacia's history – another conventional school subject she'd never devoted much effort to.

Vayne walked past the statue, passing through the unnatural sunlight that bathed it from four directions. Unlike the windows at the Vayne estate, the ones assigned to Garen Lightshield's statue existed only on the interior of the building. They were enchanted to always cast soft, false, sunlight on his golden majesty.

False sunlight was useful for lighting, but it didn't burn the dark the way true sunlight did. Vayne had learned that much from trial and error of the sort that nearly cost her life.

Flanking the transept were entrances to other wings of the palace. Vayne ignored them. Her destination was the conciliar chamber near the peak of the Lightshield tower. Abraham Vayne preferred his books to the court and, unless his habit had changed drastically in her absence, he would either be in Council or he wouldn't be at the palace at all. He was an old man, older even than Quincey. Old men, especially old Demacian men, were bad at changing their habits.

This time, instead of taking the stairs, Vayne chose the lifts to ascend the tower. She wasn't wearing the sort of clothes she wanted to sweat too much in.

The lifts were platforms that slowly rose, or dropped, between the floors of the tower. As they neared a ceiling, a hole would open for them, and as they left a floor, the hole, ringed by railings, would close behind it, lest anyone fall to their death. Still, with some ceilings being as high as the arched ceiling of the ground floor, the risk of serious injury on the lifts was always a possibility. There were railings, yes, but some nobles with weaker spirits would take the stairs in every case. To their credit, despite their fear of heights, they were often extremely fit and good at climbing stairs and they rarely arrived late to anything.

Vayne was not afraid of heights. She disliked the lifts for her own reasons. They were magic. Neutral magic, magic laid down countless generations ago and renewed yearly magic protected by wards against meddling forces, but, still, magic was magic. Trusting her life to the lifts was uncomfortable. She couldn't take a lift apart and see how it worked, couldn't confirm that it would work. It was nothing but a piece of floor with rails and a great deal of enchantment.

On the hunt, magic could prove unreliable. All it took was one witch of middling power to muck up most hextech devices. Mundane weapons were far more reliable.

It was highly improbable that a witch would break into the Lightshield compound and then take the time to pierce the lift wards and sabotage them, but reason was the enemy of paranoia.

Doing her best to set aside worries about the building's structural integrity, Vayne turned towards the column of windows that the lift passed by as it rose up through the floors. She could see the entire shining city, the great estates, the upper wards, the markets, the lower wards, the city wall, past the city wall, even. Idly, as the lift rose at a sluggish pace, Vayne amused herself trying to pick out landmarks from the cityscape.

The arches were easy to find, and to name, though she couldn't name the battles or campaigns they commemorated even if her life depended on it. The monumental columns that dotted the landscape were slightly harder to see than the arches and, again, if she'd ever known what they were monuments to, she'd certainly forgotten now.

On a whim, Vayne raised a hand and shifted her glasses up off the bridge of her nose.

Her glasses weren't magic. They were just pieces of well-cut, curved, glass. But the effect they had for her might as well have been magic. Without them, the city blurred away into a sea of light, framed by the darkness of the walls surrounding the window.

Vayne had been born with poor vision and it hadn't improved with age. She'd worn glasses for as long as she could remember. As a young child, other children had teased her about them. Their parents, of course, had scolded them, but they'd used different words than Vayne would have. Their parents had spoken of manners and rules. Vayne would have called them stupid children with no appreciation for the privilege they'd been born with. She'd done as much as a teenager, when she'd been old enough to figure out exactly why she didn't like her peers.

It was probably a good thing she wasn't a parent and would never be one. She didn't have any sense for the proper rhetoric to inculcate the next generation with proper Demacian values.

Vayne dropped her glasses back down onto her nose. She liked being able to see. What would have become of her if she'd been born to a peasant family in a distant village? A child unable to see? It was not a hypothetical she enjoyed entertaining.

Judging from the angle at which she was looking down at the city, she'd guess she was near to her destination now. Indeed, the already slow lift was slowing even further. Above her, the hole in the ceiling slid open silently.

What would happen if that door ever failed? Would the lift keep rising and kill its occupants by grinding them into the ceiling?

Vayne rolled her eyes at herself. It wasn't something she should worry about.


	3. Vayne: III

The lift came to a halt and the railing moved aside. Vayne stepped out and the rail slid back into place behind her.

She stood in a circular room. It wasn't small, but it wasn't as large as any of the grand chambers elsewhere in the building.

Vayne wasn't the only one in the room. Nobles, all of high rank within their houses, judging by their clothes and crests, milled about. At the far end of the room, a pair of large blue and gold doors was were shut and flanked by six soldiers in the uniform of the Demacian Elite Guard on each side. The Council was in session. No one but the Council members, the heads of the great houses, could ever go beyond those doors, not while the Council was in session, not while the Council was out of session.

So Vayne would have to wait. She assumed that her uncle was beyond those doors, but she couldn't check and the guards wouldn't answer if she asked. She could, she supposed, ask one of the nobles standing about, but she didn't want to. Trying not to move quickly or draw any more attention to herself than her arrival had created, Vayne crept towards an empty area near the edge of the room. She'd really rather not even talk to the nobles here if she could help it.

Demacian court life being what it was, there was a chance that they'd forgotten they disliked her, but she'd no desire to deal with the alternative. Her 'hobby' – their word, not hers – was inappropriate for a Demacian noblewoman and, as upstanding citizens, it was their duty to correct it. That had been the mood when last she'd come to court. After enjoying her family's tacit acceptance for so long, the censure from the other houses had bothered her more than it had any right to. But the Crown hadn't spoken on the matter, and, unless the Crown spoke, no family but her own could command her.

For the time being, her presence in the antechamber of the Council went unremarked upon. She could only hope that it boded well for the rest of her stay at court.

The wait for the Council to dismiss was mercifully short. Vayne had heard stories of people waiting hours, all day even, for the Council to break. She'd never had the reason or the patience to wait that long for them.

As soon as the great doors began to open inward, the volume of conversation surged. The assembled nobles followed decorum and didn't crowd the Council members as they exited, but they did call out for attention and they did move to ambush their targets farther away from the doors.

By accident, Vayne had picked a place near the doors and she could see every Council member as they exited. The first several were men she didn't recognize. She knew she'd seen their family crests before, but she couldn't name them. They were from lesser families. The next group were the same to her. They were from houses with more prestige than the first wave, but they still represented interests that weren't important enough for Vayne to know by name.

The last Council members to exit were the ones Vayne did recognize. They were the men of the great families – the men whose voices actually mattered in guiding Demacia's march. They emerged one by one, in order of seniority.

The first, from the youngest of the great families, was a middle-aged man with red hair and a large nose. Josin Buvelle.

Vayne grimaced. Had she really just thought of Josin as middle-aged? One of the boys who'd teased her about her glasses, he was barely a year older than her. Now married and the father of five – or, the father of five legitimate children the last time Vayne had encountered him – he was the very picture of an upstanding Demacian noble.

The next Council member to emerge was… Vayne searched for his name. What was it? He was her mother's younger brother, she should know… Kenneth. Kenneth Spiritmight. Maybe. He walked with a limp from an old injury – a spear to the knee. Or had it been a sword? An arrow? Vayne couldn't remember his name and she couldn't remember his personal history either. In any case, he walked with a limp, he was getting along in his years, and those things combined to make him look distinctly worse for wear compared to his noble brethren.

If memory served, and Vayne half-doubted that it did, the next house in precedence was Laurent. She knew the head of that house. Garen Laurent. Yet another Garen. Vayne knew him not personally but through his reputation. He was a fearsome duelist, a force to be reckoned with on the piste. He was a Council member who commanded respect on account of his own deeds instead of on account of his family's name and Vayne found herself almost looking up to him – from a distance.

The person who walked out of the Council chamber in the place of House Laurent was not Garen Laurent.

Vayne blinked.

Then she blinked again.

Who-?

It was a woman.

The Council seat was occupied by the head of each house and the head of a house was always a man. That was how succession worked. There were rules about these things.

The crowd, which had been loud a moment ago, quieted. Vayne could sense the tension in the air. She'd witnessed too many mobs to count and here she felt that it would take only a spark to trigger a riot of nobles.

The woman marched past the nobles wither her back straight and her head high. She wore a white tunic, edged in gold, and a dark reddish-purple half-cape across her shoulders. White and purple were the colors of House Laurent. Like the rest of her family, she was tall by Demacian standards and, judging from the click of her step as she crossed the floor, her shoes made her stand even taller. Her hair was dark but her bangs were dyed the purple of her house. Those bangs framed a sharp face with high eyebrows and full lips – the face of a Laurent, through and through.

If the woman had any feelings about the way the room quieted at her entrance, she didn't show them. As she neared lifts, an entourage of men dressed in the colors of the Laurent closed ranks around her. Together, they stepped onto one of the lifts and vanished beneath the floor.

Vayne was so caught by the oddity that had passed by that she almost missed the entrance of her uncle, Abraham Vayne. She had to take several quick steps to catch up with him as he too headed for the lifts. What members of their house that had also been waiting for him backed away as she approached. She was the most senior member of the family after Abraham himself and his son.

"Your Grace," Vayne greeted.

"Shauna," Abraham replied. "I was starting to wonder if you would come at all." The warmth of his voice have his words a hint of humor where another man might have sounded annoyed. "You've missed quite a bit."

"I was near the border when I received your message," Vayne said.

Abraham nodded as he stepped onto the lift. "No need to explain. It will simply be difficult to fill you in at such a late hour. The Noxians are already here." He paused. "Not here, here. Here in the city. The prince was instructed to take them here by the longest route possible." The head of the Vayne household chuckled. "If they've come here to stall for time, we may as well help them."

Vayne stepped onto the lift behind her uncle. He tapped the control stone and it began to descend, leaving the rest of their family behind. "Why am I here, uncle?" Vayne asked. "I'm not a politician."

Abraham's answer was sharp and immediate. "Which is an awful shame. This court could use more common sense."

The corners of Vayne's lips pulled up slightly, the ghost of a smile. "But uncle, it has you."

"Ah," Abraham replied. "I'm but one voice, and the Council has taken to some awfully foolish notions of late… But that's not why you're here, I know."

"Don't keep me in suspense for too long," Vayne said.

Abraham hummed softly. "That's my Shauna," he said. "Always wanting to get to the point."

Vayne leaned back slightly against the rail of the descending lift. "Which is…?"

"The Crown asks that you remain here at court for the duration of the Noxian negotiations," Abraham said. He raised a hand to quiet any interruption. "Our family, all the families, and the Crown… We all acknowledge your contribution to the State. But you should realize you've been allowed to run free across the country on your hunts by the pleasure of the Crown. You've done much for Demacia. But chasing ghosts in small towns is not the extent of your duty. It is not your sole duty. It is not your highest duty."

Ignoring her uncles' non-verbal request that she not break interrupt his lecture, Vayne cut in, "The highest duty of every citizen is to the State." She could hear annoyance in her voice as she recited from the Measured Tread.

Abraham didn't seem too displeased at her outburst. He knew her well enough that he'd likely expected it. "And your duty to the State now requires you to help watch the Noxian delegation."

Sarcasm dripped from Vayne's words. "You don't trust them?"

"The Noxians or our own guards?" Abraham replied.

Vayne stilled. In an instant, if ever she'd had any thought to protest her duty, that thought fled. In her own mind, she felt herself shift from noblewoman to hunter. "Is there anything I should know?"

"This is why I'd hoped you'd arrive earlier," Abraham said. "There's little time to brief before they arrive."

The lift slowed now as they passed through the ceiling of the entrance hall.

"Give me the short version," Vayne replied. "I saw three leaders outside the gates. Who were they?"

Abraham nodded. "The man is Darius. He's one of their lieutenant generals. He's made a name for himself in Noxus by killing aristocrats who disagree with him in the name of brute strength. Nasty business. Ostensibly he's here to advise the lead negotiator on strategy, but we think he's been sent because they wanted him away from the capital."

"Understandable," Vayne said. The lift had reached the floor now, where it came to rest with a soft thunk. The rail slid away and the two began to walk down the nave towards the front doors of the palace. As was proper, Vayne stayed a half step behind her uncle.

Abraham continued, "The two women are the Du Couteau sisters, the two daughters of Marcus Du Couteau, Noxus' second highest ranking general. The younger sister, Cassiopeia, is the only actual diplomat they've sent. She's very pretty and her pretty face gets her all sorts of places. She's never been far from Noxus before though, so we know little about her."

Without asking, Vayne knew which of the two women she'd seen earlier her uncle was now referring to. "And the other?" she asked.

"Katarina Du Couteau is the head of their mission," Abraham said.

"The daughter of a general is the head of the mission and not the actual general?" Vayne asked.

Abraham shrugged. "Don't ask me to explain Noxus. Better minds than mine have tried and failed."

Vayne sighed. "So this Katarina Du Couteau then, who is she?"

"An assassin," Abraham said, telling Vayne nothing she hadn't already known. "She's been quite active along the border. She's killed quite a few of our better commanders."

"It's an insult to welcome her here," Vayne commented.

Again, Abraham shrugged. "Such are negotiations with the enemy. By all accounts, she has a terrible temper and she's bad with words. We can only guess that she's here either to lend her father's credibility to this venture, to murder someone, or…"

Vayne scrutinized her uncle. "Or?"

"There are rumors about her and Garen Crownguard, the commander of the Dauntless Vanguard," Abraham said.

Vayne choked, caught between a laugh and a derisive snort. "And these rumors have enough credibility that the Council is seriously entertaining that she's come all this way on the first diplomatic mission between Noxus and Demacia in a decade… to elope with him?"

"You recall what I said about common sense," Abraham answered.

They were almost to the great doors of the hall now, doors which already lay open. Outside, the disorderly crowd that Vayne had passed through on her way to the great spire of the Lightshield's seat had been organized to allow a broad open avenue from the gates of the palace compound to the steps that lead up to the tower. As at the gates of the city itself, the men of the Dauntless Vanguard stood shoulder to shoulder as a cordon between the assembled and the open area.

"This way," Abraham said. He led them to stand near the top of the stairs. The more junior noble councilmen were already in their places on the steps, surrounded by their entourages. Behind Vayne and her uncle, the rest of the representatives of their family filed in, having taken another lift down.

Among the nobles who had known what the day held, Vayne felt distinctly underdressed. Perhaps she should have worn a dress after all.

Directly beneath where the Vayne house was assembled stood House Laurent.

Vayne inclined her head towards her uncle's ear and, as quietly as she could, asked, "Who is the woman who replaced Garen Laurent?"

Abraham, normally a laidback man, stiffened. "The new Master of House Laurent, Garen's daughter, Fiora," he murmured back. "She killed him in an honor duel almost two years ago and took his seat."

To that, Vayne made no reply. From her vantage point, above and behind, she looked the woman over a second time.

This woman, this Fiora – she'd killed her father?

Vayne stared, trapped somewhere between horror and revulsion.

All the barely restrained animosity of the nobles in the antechamber of the Council suddenly made sense. A patricide sat on the Council.

And the Crown had allowed this?

What sort of honor had been at stake for the king to condone such a thing? What sort of tradition had been invoked to conquer the proper bonds of family?

And now – now the other members of House Laurent answered to her? Willingly?

There had to be an explanation of some sort. Perhaps Garen Laurent had – but no father deserved to die, and not by the hand of his daughter. And what of Garen Laurent's sons? How could they not burn for vengeance?

Vayne's eyes raked over Fiora's back. Even hidden by her half-cape, it was clear Fiora had a slim build. Of course, duelists trained for different feats than soldiers, but still, this slip of a woman had dueled the famous Garen Laurent to the death and won?

The only thing that tempered Vayne's gut revulsion was disbelief.

It seemed more likely that she'd misheard her uncle than that the woman before her had killed her own father.

Whatever other thoughts Vayne might have had were interrupted by the blast of a horn coming from the open gates. The column had arrived.

A quick glance around her revealed that while she'd been struggling with her tumultuous thoughts, the rest of the noble houses and filled in behind her family and the king himself, along with his retainers, stood at the topmost stair in the center of the formation of the great houses.

In his old age, Jarvan III had become something of a recluse. That, combined with Vayne's infrequent attendance at court meant that she couldn't even remember the last time she' seen him. As best she could tell though, he looked exactly the same as he had however many years ago it had been. The mages of the College had done good work in preserving him.

A part of Vayne nagged that such a thing was a perversion of the natural order. The larger part of her, however, recognized that, in service to the State, it was a small problem. It was small to the point of being no problem at all.

From the direction of the gates, a crier called out, loud enough that the entire parade ground could hear, "His Majesty, Exemplar of Demacia, Prince Jarvan Lightshield the Fouth!"

Watching the assembled crowd kneel was like watching a sweeping wave. It began nearest to the gate and spread out, crossing the whole of the ground and then rising up the steps among the higher nobles. In her turn, Vayne knelt, as did the rest of her family, save for her uncle. He and the other heads of the great houses, as well as the king himself, remained standing.

With the tall Laurents now kneeling, Vayne had a better vantage of their Master.

Master. What an odd, archaic, title. It was left to each house to name the title for their leader. By tradition, the most senior Crownguard was the Chancellor of the State. The foremost Lightshield was, of course, the King. The Spiritmights, the Vaynes, and the Buvelles shifted between informal terms of address but formally styled themselves Dukes. Only the Laurents were led by a Master.

Their current Master… slim though she was, in her tight blue pants, it was clear Fiora had the legs of a fighter.

Had Vayne misjudged? It wasn't out of the question that the woman's cape hid a great deal of athleticism. So perhaps she could hold her own in a duel. But defeat Garen Laurent? Still unlikely.

And where would she have learned to fight? Vayne had never heard of her before. She must have been a younger child, a nobody as far as these things were reckoned among the great houses. Like Vayne, she would have been brought up focused on a future marriage and little else. It was the duty of the women of the houses to preserve their father's lineages.

Still staring at the other woman, still trying to craft some story for her, Vayne nearly missed the signal to rise. As a result, she was a half-beat late in standing. Hopefully no one had noticed. There were far more important things going on than her own social blunders.

Jarvan IV, mounted, had now advanced to the base of the steps leading up to the king. Like a dutiful dog, Garen Crownguard stood behind him.

How long had the Crownguard commander been walking in full plate through the streets? Abraham had mentioned Jarvan guiding the convoy along the longest possible route to the palace, and, given how much Vayne had accomplished in the interim, she fully believed it.

"Your majesty!" the younger Jarvan called out.

"My son," the king replied. His voice was the voice of a commander, pitched so that even in the din of battle all could hear it.

And so it began. The eternity of formality that came with every ceremony. Vayne could practically feel her eyes glaze over as her attention slipped away from the moment.

She would never allow such a lapse on a hunt. But. This was not a hunt. Unfortunately.

Idly, Vayne's eyes and thoughts wandered back to Fiora Laurent.

There was little else she could glean from the woman's appearance though, and all the questions she had spawned only more questions and no answers. The only answers she'd get would come from asking either her uncle or some other family member at a later time.

Fiora Laurent was an enigma for now, and there were other things she could focus on.

Behind the prince, the black carriages looked just as they had outside the gates. The Dauntless Vanguard had done a good job protecting them from the crowds. Vayne would have expected a few broken eggs against the sides of the carriages, at the very least. It seemed though that Demacian order won out over even Demacian hate for Noxus.

Abraham said she was to watch the Noxians? Fine then, she would watch the Noxians.

Her task would be far easier had she arrived earlier. She likely could have shaved a day or more off of her journey had she simply traveled on the highways instead of following the backwoods trails she preferred. In making her regret her tardiness, her uncle had managed to do what the family steward had not.

Based on what she knew, the assassin, Katarina, would require most of her attention. That was not surprising in the least. The general and the diplomat, though not harmless, at least had plausible reasons for being present. Did she trust those reasons? No. But it seemed wisest to focus on the most obvious wildcard, at least to begin with.

On a hunt, it always paid to know the purpose of the enemy.

Nothing Abraham had said served as a good explanation for the assassin's presence. Lending her father's credibility could have been done by sending the younger sister alone. Eloping with the Crownguard commander was a bad joke and it was a mark against the Council that they'd even considered it. And killing someone? Perhaps if it were killing someone at some vital point in the negotiations – but even then, there was little sense in sending an assassin in the open when Noxus no doubt could have smuggled an equally talented but lower profile killer in amongst the rest of the entourage.

Anywhere except standing in front of what had to be every noble in Demacia, Vayne would have frowned to herself at the conundrum before her. Instead, she kept her face stoically blank.

What was the point of this diplomatic farce anyway? Demacia would accept nothing but surrender and Noxus would never surrender.

Vayne's uncle had said something about stalling for time.

Vayne paid little attention to the goings on of the world beyond the borders of Demacia, but even she knew that Noxus was now fighting a war on three fronts. They had their traditional war with Demacia, which they waged across the fields of central Valoran. They had their continuing struggle with the tribes of the southern Freljord. And now they'd gone and invaded the far off island of Ionia. If they were stalling for time, did that mean that they hoped to win one of those other fronts quickly and then refocus their resources against Demacia, stronger than ever before?

No matter what Abraham might think, Vayne's common sense didn't carry her very far when it came to political machinations. She was far better at devising the best way to torch a coven of vampires or flush out a hiding werewolf.

Did the Crown suspect the Noxians had brought a vampire or a werewolf? Was that why she'd been requested?

She could only hope for something so interesting.


	4. Vayne: IV

Out on the parade ground, the ceremony had finally reached the part where the Noxians came back out of their carriages.

This time, the assassin went first. Immediately on her heels was her sister, and after both of them came the general. Behind them, the rest of the Noxians poured out of their carriages. With a precisely measured step that Vayne recognized as military discipline, the entire mass of the black-clad men moved to stand in three lines behind the three principals.

It wasn't so odd, she supposed, that the Noxian delegation would appear to be comprised exclusively of military men. Demacia had a mandatory period of enlistment for all male citizens and, in order to stand against such might, Noxus probably had something similar.

Unlike during the confrontation at the gates, the redheaded assassin held herself in a formal posture. She still moved as if constantly on the edge of violence, but nothing about her motions betrayed anything except the utmost control. Standing at the head of her delegation, Katarina waited.

She didn't have to wait long.

"Envoys of Noxus, Demacia welcomes you," the king said. "We hope that these negotiations, the first of their kind in a generation, will bear the fruit of peace."

When the assassin spoke, it was loud enough that Vayne and the nobles assembled on the steps could hear, but probably not loud enough for the rest of the crowd. "We thank you for your welcome," she said. It sounded mechanical, like someone else had told her what to say and then she'd rehearsed it a hundred times, so many times any hint of sincerity had long since washed out. "We hope to find common ground during our stay here, relying upon your hospitality."

Were the assassin not a Noxian, Vayne might have felt sorry for her. She seemed to be a far different woman here on the parade ground than she'd been at the gate. Ceremony and public speaking were apparently not her strong suites, certainly not compared to sarcasm and casual disrespect.

And that continued to beg the question – who chose her to lead this mission?

The king said something. It was probably something official sounding and ceremonious. Perhaps it was even important.

Katarina responded, and Vayne tuned her out. Her rehearsed lines sounded painful.

Behind her, the general stood at attention, staring straight forward at the empty white steps of the tower front with a frightening tenacity. It was like he was willing himself not to look at anything.

Between the general and the assassin, Vayne couldn't tell who was more uncomfortable.

The diplomat was the only one of the Noxians who looked at ease. Though she was barely moving, from the way her head shifted slightly every so often, Vayne could tell she was taking stock of each member of the great noble houses in turn.

Perhaps a revision of her previous assessment was in order. The younger of the sisters might be the more dangerous one.

Vayne was careful to look away when the diplomat's gaze turned towards her family. There was a good chance that glare from her glasses hid her eyes, but she preferred not to risk getting into any sort of staring contest with a woman so intent on judging and cataloguing the entire court. Not, she hoped, that it would ever matter.

Instead, Vayne turned to counting. There were twenty Noxians, not counting the three at the front. Was that a normal number for a diplomatic mission? Did these things have standards? It was few enough that they didn't seem immediately threatening, but enough that taking any action against them would lead to a bloody fight.

The greeting ceremony dragged on for what had to be at least an hour. By the time the king ordered the Noxians guided to the quarters prepared for them, Vayne was sweating uncomfortably beneath the sun and in the stifling humidity. And she was wearing blue and white cloth. She could only hazard a guess how awful it must have been to be the Noxians in their black, or the guards in their plate.

When the Demacian ego channeled itself into ostentatious displays of power, the results were never pleasant.

Finally released from their places, the high nobles began to shuffle back up into the tower as the Noxians went across the parade ground to a cluster of buildings set aside from the palace proper.

Vayne's uncle was in conversation now with another family member whose name and exact relation to her Vayne couldn't recall. With her uncle preoccupied, she couldn't ask leave, so she trailed after the rest of the house somewhat at a loss for what to do.

It was yet another thing she didn't like about being in the capital. So much time was spent doing nothing. On the road, at least, she was always moving to the next town.

"Shauna Vayne?"

Vayne nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around. Someone had said her name. There was no one there, just nobles from other houses staring at her like she was a madwoman.

"Keep walking. You can't see me," the voice said. It was a quiet voice, probably quiet enough no one else could hear it. A woman's, maybe. "I am an agent of the Crown. Take the lift to the third floor. The second room on the right."

Agent of the Crown or no, it reeked of magic and Vayne didn't like it.

If it was an order from the Crown though, she had no choice but to obey. And if it wasn't, well, that was an assessment she couldn't yet make.

No one really noticed her as she stepped onto a lift and tapped the control stone for the third floor. A few other nobles joined her, but they were all headed higher up into the tower for their business. Vayne doubted even the end of the world could put a stop to the Demacian bureaucracy for long.

The third floor was deserted, and so was the second room on the right. It was, for all appearances, a small conference room, containing only a large wooden table and chairs. On the interior of the tower, the room lacked windows. Vayne had only gone a few steps into the room when the door closed behind her. Keeping tight control of her instinct to find and attack the first thing that moved, Vayne slowly turned.

"Hang on a second," the voice said.

There was a shimmering of light, as if the air were bending itself and distorting around something, and then there she was, a young woman. Blond, blue eyes, waif-thin, looking fit to fall over in a stiff breeze. She wore bland clothes, accented with a few pieces of lace, in Demacian colors with the Crownguard crest on a broach. She seemed young. Vayne doubted she'd even reached her twentieth year –which made her control over light magic nothing short of stunning.

Wary as Vayne was of magic, some disciplines were so contrary to the black arts that witches couldn't even use them. Light magic was one of those disciplines. Vayne wasn't prepared to forgive the girl for sneaking up on her, but she was prepared to listen to whatever this agent of the Crown had to say.

The girl gave a curtsey. "Luxanna Crownguard," she said.

Vayne nodded. She didn't need to introduce herself. Clearly the Crownguard girl already knew her name.

"Thank you for coming," said Luxanna. "Please, sit." She gestured to one of the chairs.

Vayne regarded the chair. She didn't want to sit, but she also didn't want to be stubborn. There was business to be done and an argument about sitting or standing was trivial compared to the duty to the Crown. "I didn't have much of a choice," Vayne grumbled as she pulled the chair out from the table.

"Everyone has a choice," said the Crownguard.

Her voice was, in a word, bubbly. It was not particularly endearing.

"If there weren't a choice, there'd be no difference between doing the right thing and the wrong thing," she continued. "There wouldn't be a point in duty."

Considering the response her offhand complaint had provoked, Vayne decided it was best to keep quiet and wait for the girl to get on with it.

"Right," Luxanna started. "So you're here to help us, us being the Intelligence Corps, keep an eye on the Noxians."

"And you're here to tell me how to do that," Vayne finished.

The girl smiled and Vayne instantly regretted saying anything.

"Oh, I wouldn't presume to tell you how to do your job," she said. "We asked for you because you're a specialist."

Vayne wanted to remark that she was a specialist in vampire hunting, not Noxian babysitting, but she'd already learned her lesson.

Unfortunately, it seemed the girl was waiting for her to say something in reply.

For Tread's sake.

"And?" Vayne prompted.

If Luxanna was disappointed she couldn't explain away another bit of Vayne's sarcasm, she didn't show it. Still bubbling, she continued, "There's a very high probability these negotiations will end very badly."

The Crownguard girl paused, actually paused, waiting for the obvious retort to the obvious statement.

Vayne refused to indulge her.

The uncomfortable silence of dying small talk filled the room. And all through it, the Crownguard girl – Luxanna – sat with a half-smile and an unnaturally piercing stare. It was a tactic Vayne recognized. In an interrogation, the person who had the lower tolerance for silence always lost. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been that person.

But here she was.

"So what is my duty?" Vayne asked. She knew what Luxanna Crownguard was doing. She was falling for it. But she refused to fall so far as to start talking about herself.

"Right now, we're waiting," said Luxanna.

Really? Vayne arched an eyebrow. It wasn't speech, but it hopefully was communication enough to avoid the stifling nothing if she didn't respond at all.

Without breaking her unnerving stare, Luxanna leaned back in her chair.

Between the two of them, a hunter with over a decade of experience and a waif of a noble girl, surely not even twenty, Vayne knew exactly who was in control. Not Vayne.

"Lucian and Senna should be arriving…" Luxanna trailed off and glanced at the door.

Vayne's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't seen Lucian and his wife, Senna, for several years. As hunters, they ranged here and there across Demacia and their paths rarely crossed, but when they did meet, the young couple were good company. They were some of the few people Vayne truly enjoyed being around.

There was a sharp knock at the door.

"Now," Luxanna finished.

It was clear, painfully so, that Vayne had underestimated the young Crownguard at first evaluation. Sizing someone up was a crucial skill in the field, and she didn't like the thought she'd erred so badly.

"Come in," Luxanna called out.

The door opened. Just as Luxanna had predicted, Lucian and Senna had arrived.

The first thing Vayne always noticed about Lucian whenever she encountered him was how tall he was. Standing next to someone like Garen Crownguard, Lucian's height probably wouldn't have seemed so extraordinary – or maybe it still would have. Most Demacian men of that stature were either soldiers or farmers. They had broad shoulders and thick builds. Lucian was slim. What was more, the way he carried himself doubtless gave him the illusion of extra inches he didn't actually have.

To Vayne, his second most striking feature was his dark skin. Though he claimed to have been born in Demacia, and Vayne knew better than to doubt Lucian's word, no one with Demacian ancestry had skin as dark as his. Demacians were a pale people. Noxians were somewhat darker, but not by much and certainly not as much as Lucian. He may have been born in Demacia, but his parents were likely immigrants from somewhere south of the Great Barrier – or maybe somewhere even farther afield.

Not that it was of consequence.

He didn't have the breeding to command in the army, much less join the elite, but his parentage didn't detract from his competence on the hunt. Competence was what mattered.

Unlike Lucian, Senna had been born to farmers – the very definition of Demacia's heart. She was of below-average height and had a stocky build that showed she carried far more muscle than her husband. Some years ago, while recouping in a tavern after a grueling but successful hunt together, Vayne had watched her simultaneously demolish several far larger men in a drunk brawl.

Vayne, who preferred speed and precision in the fight against the unnatural, had to stifle a surge of envious admiration at the memory. Given her style, she didn't have any use for Senna's level of strength, but she still wanted it for herself.

Both Lucian and Senna wore long white coats. Vayne always thought the white made them targets on hunts, but Lucian maintained, "This way everyone knows we're the good guys," and Senna either agreed with her husband's tomfoolery or had given up the fight long ago.

At their hips, hanging from thick leather belts, both hunters carried the tools of their trade. Carved from softly glowing white stone, their weapons of choice were relics from a bygone era. The shape of the things resembled a hextech gun, but, as far as Vayne knew, the weapons had no moving parts. They were powered by will and intent alone.

Vayne had asked once where the weapons had come from. Lucian, normally open and friendly to a fault, had smiled and shrugged. Senna, brusque, especially in comparison to her partner, had said that it wasn't important. Vayne hadn't pressed the issue.

In any case, Lucian and Senna each had one of a pair of ancient relics that they wielded to great effect against the darkness.

Upon entering the small conference room, Lucian smiled warmly. "Shauna!" He opened his arms for a greeting hug.

Hugs were not something Vayne did. Ever. But Lucian, with his charm and kindness, was an exception. She stood to return his embrace.

Senna ignored them both. She focused on Luxanna. "You're the agent?" she asked. Her voice was soft considering her manner, something she'd sometimes lament given a few drinks.

"Agent is a strong word," Luxanna answered.

Vayne wasn't looking at the Crownguard, but she thought she heard a touch of surprise in the girl's voice. The barest of cracks in her façade. Senna had that effect on people.

"You're the agent," Senna repeated. This time it was not a question. "Why are we here?"

Awkward greeting ceremony done with, Vayne returned to her seat and focused her attention back on Luxanna. There'd be time enough later to catch up with her fellow hunters.

If Senna's questioning had caught Luxanna off guard, the girl had recomposed herself now. She gestured with a slim hand towards the still-open door.

Senna kicked it closed. It wasn't a particularly hard kick, but it was hard enough everyone could hear the door latch.

She truly was the daughter of farmers, raised in a barn.

As Senna had ignored Lucian's hug, Lucian ignored his wife's poor manners and sat down at the table. Perhaps ignore wasn't the right word though. Vayne had concluded some time ago that the two didn't willfully ignore each other's quirks, they'd just been together for so long they didn't notice.

Luxanna locked eyes with Senna, then pointedly looked at an empty chair.

Senna crossed her arms over her chest and remained standing.

Vayne refrained from showing any of her amusement. It wasn't appropriate for her, a grown woman, to laugh at Luxanna's predicament, even if the girl had done it to herself.

Luxanna cleared her throat. She seemed ever so slightly less offensively cheerful than before. "You understand that nothing said in this room can leave it," she said. "And I'm not here."

Senna shrugged. "Of course."

"I'm serious," Luxanna insisted.

Senna's reply was quick. "So am I."

As if she'd finally realized it was time to get to the point, Luxanna dropped all pretense of cheer. "There was an incident." She paused, then, "A few days after our escort met with the convoy at the border, one of our guards attacked Cassiopeia Du Couteau, the primary negotiator for the Noxians."

The hunters all shared a look.

So what if a Demacian had attacked a Noxian? There was duty, and then there was justice and then there was hate. Everyone had lost someone to the Noxians.

"There were enough witnesses from our side to confirm that the guard wasn't in his right mind," Luxanna continued.

Well. That was unexpected.

Vayne's uncle had asked if she trusted their guards. She'd taken him to mean one thing, perhaps he'd meant another.

"What are you saying?" Senna asked.

Luxanna mimicked Senna by crossing her arms over her chest and suddenly the Crownguard girl seemed far older than she had any right to. "According to the reports we've gathered, there was blood coming from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. He was unresponsive to verbal commands to stop. He was unusually strong and killed two of his comrades trying to get to the Noxian. The leader of their delegation slit his throat, but he didn't stop moving until there was an axe through most of his torso, pinning him to the ground."

Vayne's mind tumbled through possibilities. Dark magic. Clearly. But what kind? Nothing she'd encountered matched what Luxanna described. With so little to go on though, it could have been anything. She needed more information.

Thinking similarly to Vayne, Lucian spoke. "You have the body?" Though his demeanor was a far cry from that of his wife, his warmth had dimmed.

Luxanna shook her head. "This was three weeks ago. The soldiers insisted on burying him and the Crown and Council decided to allow it."

"Do know anything else?" Vayne asked.

Again, Luxanna shook her head. "The specialists at the College referred us to you."

"She didn't ask about the College," Senna cut in. "She asked about you."

Face impassive, Luxanna's eyes flickered to the hunter. The Crownguard definitely knew, or thought she knew, something else. "I wouldn't want to impose on your independent investigation," she said diplomatically.

Even pitted against Senna's absolute intolerance for mind games, Vayne doubted Luxanna would let anything slip that she didn't want to. She was too good at her job for that.

"So that's all?" Vayne asked. "There might be someone who might be using dark magic to maybe kill Noxians?"

Luxanna didn't even pause in her reply. "Yes."

"And you have no leads for us," Senna added.

"Correct," said Luxanna.

"This is a waste of time," Senna said. Anger colored her voice. She waved a hand towards one of the walls. "There are real dangers out there. Innocent people killed by actual monsters. In places without an army of guards sitting about, twiddling their thumbs. And you want us to chase ghosts to protect Noxians? Ridiculous."

Vayne frowned. She was inclined to agree that, without direction, this hunt could be a fruitless waste of a month or more, but they were here because there was real proof of dark magic. What was more, the Crown had ordered it. Somewhat reluctantly, she began, "Senna, we have a Duty to the State. This negotiation-

"Then you can stay," Senna said. "You can do your duty, and we'll do ours." She looked down at where her husband was sitting, as if waiting for him to agree with her.

Instead of agreeing, Lucian set a hand on Senna's arm. He spoke slowly. "Sen, that guard was an innocent too. He had a life, family. We can't turn away from those who need us because we'd rather help someone else."

The couple locked eyes and something passed between them.

It was strange to Vayne how a person could know someone so well that they could resolve conflict in the briefest moment of silence. It wasn't magic, but it was still not something of her world.

"Fine," Senna relented. She turned her attention back to Luxanna. "Nothing? Really?"

Luxanna shrugged politely. "The Intelligence Corps has a separate investigation, but with the Council so involved in the Corps, not all of the theories so far have been entirely credible."

Vayne's brow furrowed. The Council had no business running the Intelligence Corps. If they were involved now, it was only to ensure that whatever answer the Corps arrived at, it was politically amenable to the State. As the conversation went on, she saw better and better why she and the other hunters were there. Why hadn't Luxanna simply started the conversation like this? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucian and Senna share another look. Good – the three of them were all on the same page then. "Which Councilmen are involved?" Vayne asked. The answer would determine if anything at all from the Corps could be relied upon.

For a moment, Luxanna hesitated. Was she deciding if she was allowed to share that information? Then, "Daveth Crownguard."

Vayne nodded. Daveth Crownguard was the Chancellor of the State and it made sense that he would be pulling the strings of the misguided investigation.

"And Fiora Laurent," Luxanna finished.

Alarm bells rang bright in Vayne's head. The upstart pariah of the Council? Who was this woman? She opened her mouth to ask as much, but Luxanna was already standing to leave.

"Lucian and Senna, there are guest rooms for you in the east wing," the Crownguard said. "The guards know that you're advisors here for the negotiations and will let you move freely in the palace. Vayne, it was assumed you'd stay with your family. Do other arrangements need to be made?"

Vayne shook her head. If she was going to stay in the capital, she'd rather stay in her own home than in the cold palace of the Lightshields.

"Well then," Luxanna said, in the same obnoxiously chipper voice she'd used when Vayne first met her. "I hope you all enjoy your time here and that your business is successful." Before Vayne's very eyes, the Crownguard girl faded from view. With no one touching it, the door opened, then closed again.

Light magic was good magic, but it was still unsettling.

The silence lasted for only the briefest of seconds before Senna broke it. "I don't like this," she said.

Vayne shook her head slightly. "Our likes and our dislikes-

"Are nothing in the face of Duty," Senna finished. "I know the Tread, even if I don't follow it like you do."

"I don't…" Vayne's protest stilled in her throat. Of course she followed the Tread. Every Demacian followed the Tread, to some degree at least.

Ever the diplomat, Lucian interjected, "We all follow the Tread in our own way." He paused, then, "Just not when hunting."

Vayne couldn't help but crack a smile, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucian's words had had a similar effect on his wife.

The moment of shared mirth didn't last though. There was business to be done.

"We can't limit the suspects to the people present at the time of the first incident," Vayne said. Distantly, she noted that she called it the first incident, even though it was the only incident. It was as if she were already resigned to it happening again.

"Agreed," said Senna. "And unless there are still vestiges of magic clinging to the killer after three weeks, we'll have to wait for them to strike again."

"Another innocent will die," Vayne said.

Senna's answer was cold. "There's nothing we can do about that."

Lucian's voice joined the conversation, shifting its course. "Shauna, you're not wearing your coat."

Vayne glanced down at her clothes and silently cursed herself. Indeed she was not. Her coat, as well as the long white coats that Senna and Lucian wore, was spelled to keep its wearer safe from interference. It wasn't a coat meant for mingling at court, however, and, well, her judgment had lapsed. She hadn't expected to walk into the palace of the Lightshields and need it. She, of all people, should have known better.

Senna pulled something off her finger and offered it to Vayne, who took it wordlessly. It was a ring, golden-hued and set to show the face of a serpent surrounded by spiraling tentacles. It was cool and slightly damp to the touch. As ugly as it looked, just from holding the thing Vayne could tell there was power in it.

"You're better at mingling than we are," Senna said. "The ring was a gift, once. It will keep you safe."

Whatever sorcery there was on the ring, it didn't feel… it didn't feel dark. Vayne couldn't quite describe it, but unlike most magic, the ring didn't feel at odds with the world. If anything it felt… like it was part of the world, more so than the world itself. She slipped it onto her finger. If Senna was willing to use it, if Senna believed that it was effective, Vayne was willing to stake her life on it as well.

"We'll do what we can to scope out the situation and the suspects," Lucian said. "But you're better positioned to question the nobles." There was no rancor in his words, no jealousy. "We'll focus on the Noxians, you can focus on the Demacians."

Vayne arched an eyebrow. "You think that's a good division of our resources?"

Senna was on the same track as her husband. "Compared to the Demacians, know nothing about any of the Noxians. And they're no less likely to be the culprits. You know that."

Vayne did know that. Did the Intelligence Corps know that though? Not that they mattered. Or did they? "I want to know what the Intelligence Corps knows," Vayne said, speaking her thoughts out loud.

"The cheerleader didn't think very highly of them," Senna remarked.

"And you didn't think very highly of the cheerleader," Lucian replied. To Vayne, he said, "It's as good a place to start as any. You know we trust your judgment."

Vayne stood and nodded. It was clear to her that the conversation was drawing to a close. They'd covered everything that needed to be discussed. As much planning as they did, there was truth to Senna's prediction – the trail was so cold that the most useful thing for their investigation would be for someone to die. Until then all they could do was lay the groundwork for the coming hunt.

"Good luck, good hunt," Senna said.

Vayne nodded to her, and then to Lucian as well. "The same to you," she said.


	5. Fiora: I

Fiora's feet hurt.

When she went to court, she wore court shoes – hellish things dreamed up by some sadist with a vendetta against the short. This was not, of course, to suggest in any way that Fiora Laurent was short. Quite the contrary. Like her father, her mother, her brothers, her sisters, and the rest of her family, she was tall for a Demacian. Tall for anyone of any nationality, really – though none mattered save for the Demacians. If she so chose, she could easily wear flat soled shoes and stand eye to eye with the rest of the Councilmen.

Eye to eye, however, was not what Fiora wanted - what Fiora needed.

What Fiora needed was to be tall enough to look down on Daveth Crownguard every time the senile old man so much as breathed in her direction.

And so it was that she wore court shoes to court.

She did not, however, wear court shoes within the confines of her own home, the Laurent estate. And by no means did she wear court shoes within the Laurent salle d'armes. Such a thing was simply not done.

Still, switching from the high heeled shoes of court into the comfort of flat soled boots did little to ease the cramps in her feet, in her calves, in her everything. Enduring meetings of the Demacian Council and the endless ceremony of the State was no easy feat, not even for Fiora. When she'd ascended two years ago at the age of twenty-three, she had been the youngest master of the Laurent in recent memory, and the first female head of a great noble house in over three centuries – a feat lost on no one.

She'd had nothing but trouble from the other noble houses ever since.

The only thing that served to ease the constant tension in Fiora's neck and the pounding in her head was running through drills and forms.

In the familiar hall of the Laurent salle d'armes, she set aside the stiff brocade of formal coats and wore a lightweight tunic and pants instead, the sort of clothes that could move and survive sweat. Still, they were finely tailored and bore the purple Laurent rose embroidered on the left shoulder. Master of her house, there was no time at which Fiora permitted herself to be anything less than her standing.

She began with footwork. Slow footwork, step by step. Toe. Heel. Finish. Toe. Heel. Finish.

As she moved, she watched herself in the mirrors that lined the walls of the room. Far above, suspended from the vaulted ceiling, magelights glittered, casting steady, even, light across the breadth of the windowless hall. There were times to train under the variable conditions of sun and shade and wind, but there were also times to train without distraction.

A duelist lived and died by her footwork.

Fiora knew that lesson far better than anyone who had ever faced her. How many duels had she fought in the past year to defend her honor and the honor of her family?

Too many. She took no joy in killing, not even men who belittled her and slandered her house.

Fiora focused on her feet to avoid thoughts of what it was she trained for.

Many favored bladework to footwork, but footwork was distance, and without distance, there could be no bladework. That said, Fiora would be the first to admit that bladework was showy and satisfying, and there were few better feelings in the world than catching a perfect parry and replying with a lightning fast riposte. As soon as she was satisfied that her muscles were warm and ready to move, she turned to the weapons rack that ran the length of the far side of the room. A full footwork drill could wait for another day. With how long the king's welcome ceremony had run, there was precious little time left before the grand ball to be held in honor of the Noxian delegation's first night in the capital.

A Demacian grand ball in honor of Noxians – what a travesty.

But the king had spoken, and the king was the State, the Law, Demacia itself.

The longer the war dragged on in Ionia, the more the Ionian countryside became ravaged beyond recognition, possibly beyond recovery. With the combined forces of the local Ionians and the Demacian army, it was almost certain that they would triumph in due time, but the Ionian delegation had been clear – the cost of such a protracted war was too high. Far better, they said, to negotiate some sort of treaty, stall for time, allow them to muster their forces from the far flung provinces of the continent.

And the Measured Tread commanded that Demacia protect the weak.

All that left Fiora lunging at invisible opponents, trying to forget that in a few hours time she would be expected to swallow her pride and dance with the Noxians.

In recent years, Fiora had spent far too much time swallowing her pride, in the name of Demacia, in the name of Laurent, and it tasted like acerbic bile. What was the point of having pride if duty demanded it be set aside at every turn? Though she tried, she couldn't challenge every single courtier who slighted her and her family.

Only discipline kept her hold on the hilt of her rapier from turning into a vice-like death grip. Tense muscles were slow muscles.

In her mind, the opponents she faced in her drills were not invisible. They were real to her. All the faces of the sycophantic gossip mongers of the court, all -

"My lady."

Fiora spun, sword still in hand, ready to fight any enemy who might present himself.

But there was no enemy, only Ammdar.

Ammdar, the younger of her two brothers, was taller than she, but only by a bare inch. Of the six children of Garen Laurent, Fiora and Ammdar were the closest to one another in age and, standing side by side, an observer might easily think them twins. A keen and solemn man, Ammdar had been the first of the other Laurents to accept Fiora as the master of the house, an act, a show of trust, that she would never forget.

"The scout who was following the column is here to report," Ammdar said. Clean-shaven and wearing a formal coat bearing the Laurent colors and crest, accented with Demacian gold, he was already prepared for the long night ahead.

Was the hour already so late?

"Send him here then," Fiora said. She did not have the time to spare to go wandering about looking for the soldier. Ammdar should have known this.

Instead of turning on his heel to carry out her order, Ammdar hesitated.

"What is it?" Fiora asked.

"I think you should come meet her outside," Ammdar replied.

Fiora's brow furrowed. What did Ammdar mean by outside? Whatever he meant, she would soon find out. She relied on him far too much to question his judgement. Fiora straightened from a duelist's stance to a more normal posture and held out her rapier. A servant rushed to take the blade from her and return it to its place on the rack.

"She's in the main courtyard. I've already cleared the area and had wards erected for privacy," Ammdar said. "I knew you wouldn't want to go out, but the bird refused to come inside."

Fiora spared her brother a quizzical look as she passed him on her way towards the door.

Bird?

Traveling through the corridors of the Laurent estate, Fiora was almost unnerved by the silence around her. To her chagrin, it seemed that she'd become accustomed to the click that her court shoes made against stone floors. Her mastership of the house was changing her, slow but sure.

Perhaps she might someday find an occasion to be at court and not feel it necessary to look down on Daveth Crownguard every time she saw him.

Unlikely.

There was precious little she could do against the man who'd ruined her life so thoroughly, and so she took every opportunity against him, no matter how petty.

The main courtyard of the Laurent estate was, in Fiora's opinion, truly a marvel unrivaled by anything else in Demacia. Located at the front of the estate, it was the first glimpse of the Laurent that a visitor would have upon crossing under the main gates. Blending hard work with magic, the Laurent gardeners kept the courtyard filled with blooming roses at every point of the year. Scarlet roses climbed trellises, delicate yellow rose bushes lined paths to the estate buildings, and vibrant purple flowers punctuated the scene, emblematic of the house itself.

In sum, Fiora was only mildly horrified when she entered the courtyard to find an enormous Demacian eagle, magnificent with deep blue plumage, ripping into one of the yellow rose bushes, fueled by what Fiora could only guess must be spite.

Demacian eagle?

Demacian eagles were extinct.

Fiora blinked.

A few feet away from the giant bird was a woman wearing the blue and gold of the Demacian rangers. Fiora presumed this woman was the scout.

How anyone could function as a scout while exhibiting such severe allergies was anyone guess.

The woman sniffled, sniffled again, then sneezed violently.

Her bird opened its majestic, aquiline beak to squawk indignantly.

Up until that day, Fiora had not been aware a bird could do such a thing, but there it was, undeniable.

"You will not come inside?" Fiora asked.

The woman wiped at her eyes as she shook her head. She gestured towards the eagle. "Val hates being indoors." She spoke with a beautifully rich voice and a… rustic accent. How a farm girl ever joined such an elite division of the army, or acquired a Demacian eagle, was a question both fascinating and not something Fiora had the time to dwell on at the moment.

Fiora arched an eyebrow. "Your bird also hates my roses."

"Sorry," the woman mumbled. She turned towards her pet bird. "Val, stop! It's fine!"

The eagle's head swiveled to stare at the woman. It squawked again, fluffing its feather's out, and then settling them back into place. Then it swiveled its head to stare at Fiora.

At least it had stopped ripping into the garden.

Fiora was not the sort of person to be intimidated by a bird. "You are the scout who followed the column of Noxians," she said. It would benefit no one to keep the woman any longer than was necessary.

Finally displaying some sense of protocol, the woman came to attention and saluted. "Yes ma'am. Quinn, ma'am. And this is Valor. We're with the Demacian Rangers Corps."

"I can see that," Fiora remarked. Even with her accent, when standing at attention it was impossible to think Quinn anything except a soldier. Looking to be in her mid-twenties, she was clearly in her prime. Wiry like a runner, she had just enough muscle to project presence without seeming overbearing. If only the women of the court looked half as -

Fiora mentally gathered herself and forced her mind back to the business at hand. "I am Laurent. I read the report that you dispatched from the road."

Of course she had. Fiora's position as one of the two heads of the Intelligence Corps meant she read most every important report. And the report issued from the column had been nothing if not important.

Daveth Crownguard had leapt to conclusions even before he'd finished reading the scrap of paper. The attack was the work of a Demacian patriot. A good man with the right ideas. Had Daveth alone been charged with the operations of the Corps, the matter would have been closed with that pronouncement.

Fiora had not been so sure. While she often thought Daveth wrong by virtue of being himself, she had suspected that in this case her doubts would become founded by proof, given time, and she'd pushed for a deeper investigation. If she was right, then she saved the Crown and humiliated Daveth Crownguard. And if she was wrong, well, she'd have lost nothing but respect. It had not been easy to win the Council over, but, with Abraham Vayne's support, she'd convinced the leading men of Demacia to call upon the handful of wandering hunters who owed their allegiance to the state. As of earlier that afternoon, she was told that three of them had answered - more, in truth, than had been expected.

Lucian. Senna. Shauna Vayne. Across Valoran, they were, it was said, the best of the best. The State was truly blessed.

Whether or not they'd been called for a false alarm, however, was yet uncertain.

She hoped that this ranger could give her some peace of mind that she had made the correct decision. Now that the column had reached the city and Quinn's duty of continuous observation was at an end, she would make a full report to the Intelligence Corps soon, but Fiora needed to hear that she was right, and she needed to hear it now.

"What conclusions have you drawn from the incident?" Fiora asked.

The ranger, Quinn, looked taken aback. "My conclusions? You want those?"

"I would not have asked for them if I did not want them," Fiora replied sharply. "You were the one in the best position to assess the situation, but your report covered only the events of the incident."

Quinn's eyes were bright. Fiora knew competence when she saw it, rare though it was. She would have to remember the ranger for future assignments.

"It was a deserted stretch of the main road," Quinn began. "We were still close to the border, so it was in the burned out no-man's-land. It happened at night in a copse of trees, but I think that was only to disguise that there wasn't anyone nearby. I checked the surrounding area, and so did Val. No one else was there."

Fiora nodded to encourage the ranger to keep going, but she herself said nothing. It was important that she not interject her own thoughts at this juncture, even if it seemed clear where Quinn was headed.

"I was trailing them, so I had to keep my distance," Quinn continued. "But there was no way Jerome would have killed his friends, not even to get at a Noxian. I don't know if this Noxian personally did something to him, but even then, he just wasn't that sort of person. There was no one else in the vicinity and we hadn't passed a settlement in days. I think someone in the convoy drugged him."

"Drugs?" Fiora pressed. "You think that it was drugs?"

Quinn nodded. "It could have been magic, or magical drugs – but it was something, and it came from the convoy."

Again, Fiora nodded. The ranger agreed with her and not Daveth. Thank the Tread. Relief was a deep breath of fresh, rose-scented, air. "Thank you," she said. "That will be all." By habit, she raised a hand to call a servant, but then stopped herself. So long as the privacy wards were in place, no servant would see or hear her summons from the garden. For a moment, she focused her attention back onto Quinn. "A moment, please."

Not waiting for the ranger to acknowledge the command, Fiora turned to walk back towards the main building of the Laurent estate. The moment she left the grass of the garden path and crossed back onto the paved white stone walkway that surrounded the courtyard, she felt lighter. The magic of wards was a weight, but not one that she was aware of except at the boundaries. So much of daily life was built upon magic that she hardly noticed it.

Ammdar was waiting for her near the tall doors of the main building. Two guards in Laurent livery stood with him, flanking the door. Normally they were meant to defend the house and to watch over the garden to protect it from, among other things, pillaging birds, but with the wards in place they couldn't see Quinn's massive pet or the havoc it had wrought.

"Ammdar," Fiora said. "See that she is compensated and that she knows she has done our house a service before you send her on her way. Also, have someone fix the flowers the bird tore up."

"Of course," Ammdar said. He'd likely already been planning to compensate and thank Quinn. It was the only possible outcome from such a meeting. Even if she'd told Fiora that she fully supported Daveth's theory, a noble, the master of a great house, could do no less than offer her a gift and thanks. As for the garden, despite Fiora's annoyance, it was nothing to a house such as Laurent to repair a few rose bushes.

"And my lady…" Ammdar added, reaching out an arm to brush against Fiora's shoulder. As her older brother, he was permitted that much familiarity, though nothing more.

Mid-stride, on her way back to the Laurent salle d'armes to continue her drills, Fiora paused. "Yes?"

"You're running out of time to get ready for the ball. The maids have drawn a bath for you in your rooms. The water is getting cold."

Fiora let none of her frustration show. Such a display was inappropriate for one of her position. "Ah, yes, thank you," she said.

Damn balls. Damn Noxians. Damn duties.

Every moment of her day was tightly scheduled and she loathed it with every fiber of her exhausted being.

Once, Fiora thought, once she'd had some modicum of freedom. On her family's country estate, she'd taught herself to ride, and to ride well. She'd forced Ammdar to teach her the blade. She'd learned the art of running, jumping, lunging in silk dresses, heavy with gold.

As she walked the gilded halls of the Laurent estate – walked quickly, for she had no little time to dally – Fiora thought of all the gold she'd give to return to those better times.

She'd had freedom and she'd squandered it.

Alone in her rooms, Fiora undressed and left her sweaty clothes in a pile on the white marble floor. There were no servants here, no family members, no one to see her and to judge her poor manners. Or were there?

She'd made the mistake, once, of thinking herself alone. Well, almost alone.

How old had she been? Twenty? Yes, Twenty. She'd been old enough to marry but young enough that her father had humored her resistance.

He'd humored her resistance up until a maid discovered her lying alongside her seamstress.

What had followed had been a long year of silence. Even Ammdar, the closest to her of all her siblings, had adopted the habit of leaving rooms when she entered.

Ammdar. She relied on him, trusted him, couldn't have come into her own as the master of the Laurent without him, loved him – but she doubted she'd ever forgive him.

It had been a long year, a terrible year.

And then her father, in consultation with his closest friend, Daveth Crownguard, came upon a solution.

It took barely a few days more than a year for them to set and plan the wedding, making it one of the fastest noble weddings in recent memory.

They'd picked a Crownguard, one of the younger sons from a cadet branch. No one too important, just in case.

Fiora had very nearly gone along with it, for the sake of her family, for the sake of herself. But at twenty-two, she'd yet to develop a stomach for her pride. She repudiated the marriage at the altar. A bold move. A stupid move. Perhaps – perhaps if she had refused more strongly before, when things had not escalated to the point that they had, when there had been a way to escape without dishonoring the groom so publically – perhaps all that followed could have been avoided.

But she'd always had a flair for the dramatic, hadn't she?

Fiora closed her eyes and sank down into the warm water of her bath.

The stress of the present pushed at her temples, demanding that she stop dwelling on the past and think, plan, plot for the ball. She had so little time. But she was tired – so tired. Would allowing her thoughts to wander for just a few minutes more make such a difference?

So she let her thoughts wander.

She let her thoughts wander to the ranger from a mere half hour before, the reason she was now reliving her past instead of preparing for the future.

Quinn.

The look of the woman was already fading from Fiora's mind, leaving only a thin memory of impressions – strength, competence, a beautiful voice. Less a person and more the idea of a person. In another life, Fiora's eyes would have lingered during their brief meeting and she would have remembered the ranger in vivid detail.

But even in that other life, it wouldn't have mattered.

In her twenty-five years, Fiora could count on a single hand the other women she'd met who shared her fault. That Quinn might be another was unthinkably unlikely.

It wouldn't have mattered in that other life, and it didn't matter in this one.

Fiora sighed deeply and stood from her bath. Warm water ran in rivulets down her skin.

She had sacrificed far too much for the honor of her family to squander it on her own inclinations.

She could not permit her father's death to have been for nothing.


	6. Fiora: II

The ball was a grand affair, because of course it was, and Fiora was dressed as befit her station and duty.

Demacia would have no less.

Ever the good steward, Ammdar had chosen her outfit. On her feet were knee high black boots with two inch heels – enough to make her taller than any other Councilman. Her velvet breeches were blue, but not the gaudy Demacian blue. Instead, they were a blue so dark that, in low light, they might look to be as dark as her boots. Though a goldcloth belt looped her waist, it could not be seen as her flowing tunic fell to mid-thigh, covering the belt completely. The tunic, white linen, was edged with a wide trim of Laurent purple. Then, lest any forget to whom they spoke, the arms of her house, done in gold and amethyst, hung from a necklace, gold rope, leaving the house arms hanging at the base of her throat.

As Fiora walked toward the great hall of the Lightshield estate, she caught a glimpse of herself in a large mirror hung on the white wall of the corridor.

The silvery glass showed a confident young woman, in her prime and in command.

The heeled boots were almost as torturous as the duty of attendance, but, Fiora had to admit, she looked splendid.

No sooner had she looked herself over than she snapped her head back forward. It would do her no favors with the old men of the court to be caught in a moment of vanity. And she was being watched. Oh yes was she being watched. Half her house marched the corridor behind her.

The Laurent were one of Demacia's great noble families. The Lightshields were the Crown and the State itself, but the Crownguards, the Vaynes, the Laurents – they were the pillars upon which the State rested. So it was and so it had been, back as far as Demacian history went, and then some. Even before the State rose, the Great Houses had been the lords of the unifying armies, back all those many generations ago. And now, here, Fiora would lead her house into the ball with all the power and magnificence that was her birthright.

Her stride did not so much as slow as servants dragged the great white doors of the hall open.

Lesser nobles entered through smaller doors.

To the Great Houses, no trapping of status was spared.

In the background, Fiora barely heard the crier shouting the Entrance of Fiora Laurent, Master of House Laurent, and all her entourage. This was court. This was ceremony.

She entered the great hall with her head held high and her back straight.

The hall itself was one of the greatest architectural achievements in Demacia – in the world, no doubt, for Demacia was a pinnacle of civilization that rose above all others on Valoran, on Runeterra. The vaulted ceiling soared at least ten stories above the floor, supported by massive white stone columns built into the walls, the walls themselves held in place outside by enormous flying buttresses. All across the lofty ceiling, magelights illuminated masterpiece paintings that depicted the rise and the glory of the State and the Crown. Great scenes of battle and heroism from the history of Demacia played out in idealistic forms above all assembled. Fifty men could stand abreast across the wide hall and still have room to spare. High stained glass windows, lit now by the fire of a setting sun, lit later by magic, cast the room in multi-colored splendor. Tapestries, representing lifetimes of work by master craftsmen, hung on the walls, creating a sense of warmth in the grand gallery of Demacian power.

Though Fiora saw this hall nearly every day, she could never help but feel small next to the might of the State. It was humbling in a way beyond any words.

Near the far end of the hall, the Noxians were already present. Their delegation, a crowd of uniformed soldiers, stood near the base of the dais beneath the empty throne, in the place of honor. Though it chafed to see them in such esteem, it made sense. For better or for worse, the Demacians all knew one another. The Noxians were the only ones in need of introductions.

In all the white and gold glory of the heart of Demacia, the black-clad Noxians stood out like an ugly smear of dirt.

Also already in the hall were the Crownguards and the Vaynes. As senior houses, they were accorded precedence in entrance.

The Crownguards, oldest of the Great Houses, occupied the base of the dais opposite the Noxians.

The Vaynes had split themselves on either side of the dais, leaving a small corridor up to the throne.

Seeing at once the protocol, without missing a step, Fiora turned towards one side of the Vaynes while she subtly signaled Ammdar behind her to go towards the other side. Behind them, the rest of the house followed suit, one to one side, the next to the other.

Given how much ceremony went into Demacian pomp, it was not by coincidence that Fiora ended up standing near to Abraham Vayne, Duke of his house.

Fiora gave him a slight nod. While he disliked her, for many of the same reasons the rest of the court despised her, Abraham Vayne was an intelligent man who generally didn't let his biases get in the way of his thinking or his duty. Without his support, it would have been impossible for Fiora to convince the Council that Daveth Crownguard might be wrong and the court might require outside assistance with the Noxian problem.

As she tipped her head toward Abraham, her eye caught on an unfamiliar face, standing almost next to her, between herself and the Duke Vayne. This was quite odd. Those who stood nearest to the Duke of their house were its most senior members, men known to all the court by sight in an instant. So who was this strange woman next to the Duke, second in place only to his son?

Fiora's preoccupation with the Noxian embassy must have slowed her thinking.

It took an inexcusably long time to identify Shauna Vayne.

In Fiora's defense, she had never seen Shauna Vayne before. This was a great shame because the hunter was a strikingly beautiful woman, uncomfortable though she seemed in court clothes.

Back near the great doors to the hall, the crier announced the Spiritmights, next in seniority after House Laurent.

Knowing full well that there was nothing worth seeing in the entrances of the houses and that the ceremony could go on another hour if they were unlucky, Fiora felt comfortable tuning out procession. It would do no harm to indulge herself and watch Shauna Vayne. If pressed, she could even justify it as an evaluation, part of her duty in direction the Intelligence Corps.

Whoever had dressed the hunter – for Fiora doubted Shauna Vayne, given how uncomfortable she obviously was, had dressed herself for court – had done a magnificent job of it.

The colors of Demacia were blue, gold, and white, and no one at court could deviate too far from that palette. Shauna Vayne was no exception. Her long shirt was a simple thing, made of white, unadorned, fabric. It hung down to mid-thigh, where it split just beneath her thick gold belt to create the illusion of a skirt. The belt was thin at the center but widened out at the hips to the point that it resembled the cuisses of a suit of armor. Though Demacians generally eschewed form-fitting clothes, it was clear that Shauna Vayne had the sort of figure the vain women of court would kill for, and her armor-like belt served to emphasize it. A modest gold and blue half-jacket cut in the style of a naval officer created the illusion, or perhaps accentuated the reality, of strong shoulders without making her seem masculine.

Had she not been standing at attention in court, Fiora might have let out a snort – in the most lady-like manner imaginable. She had had the jacket conversation with her steward and her tailors on many occasions. She knew exactly how much thought and how much work the Vayne servants must have put into Shauna Vayne's outfit to achieve such a balance.

The only signal of Shauna Vayne's familial allegiance was a small red broach, her family's coat of arms. It sat just in front of her right shoulder and held a short white cape in place.

It seemed to Fiora that Shauna Vayne seemed slightly short compared to those around her. A quick glance toward the floor revealed that the hunter was likely the only woman in the entire room not wearing some sort of heel. No, instead she had a pair of tall blue and gold boots. They looked so comfortable that Fiora couldn't continue to look for envy.

Uncomfortable with court, strong shoulders, and an athletic body – this Shauna Vayne obviously belonged outside doing something useful as opposed to trapped with the rest of the nobility in Demacian politics.

The one thing about Shauna Vayne that did not seem to fit her reputation was her long blue-black hair. Though it was currently carefully tied up and pinned back and fastened in place with a gold hairpiece in a style of the court, Fiora doubted it was at all practical in the field. Did the hunter use it for some sort of magic? Did it help with disguise? Both seemed implausible. The only thing that did seem plausible… also seemed farfetched. Did she suffer from the same vanity that Fiora herself often fell prey to?

In the distance, Fiora heard the great doors of the hall swing shut.

It seemed that Josin had finished leading in House Buvelle and they had taken their place.

For any normal court occasion, this would have been the point at which the smaller doors along the sides of the hall would have opened and the lesser noble families would have poured in to fill the spaces not occupied by their betters. For the Noxians, however, it was not to be. The smaller doors did not open. No lesser nobles entered. The event would be for the Great Houses and the guests of the Crown alone.

Everyone, except maybe the Noxians, knew what came next. The ceremonies of State were as much a part of them as the Tread itself.

As one, every Demacian in the hall turned towards the great doors and knelt. A few, Shauna Vayne included, were a half-beat behind the rest, unaccustomed to court, but kneel they did.

The Noxians, proud barbarians that they were, continued to stand tall. Fiora had heard about the incident at the gate that morning. It seemed that they continued to refuse to kneel. She doubted that they would change their ways once the king had entered – and though that would be an insult to the Crown, she was certain that the diplomats had already decided on a way to handle it or already negotiated some accommodation. It was, after all, their job. Their duty. All that was to say – it was not Fiora's problem.

Standing near the closed doors to the hall, the crier took a deep breath and began.

"Paragon of Demacia, His Majesty Jarvan Lightshield the Third, the Crown Itself – For Law, For Light, For the King!"

The doors groaned open.

The king entered.

Jarvan III was an old man by anyone's reckoning, but the mages of the court had seen to it that he did not appear so. Given the illusion of youth, he looked like an older brother to the man who followed him slightly behind and to his right – Jarvan IV, the crown prince. Both men were tall for Demacians and ruggedly handsome. Jarvan III's face had been smoothed by vain magics over the course of decades, but Jarvan IV bore all the scars of a warrior across his features. The elder Jarvan, the king, wore the traditional crown of state, reserved for great ceremonies, a broad band of gold set with jewels and worked with the arms of the Lightshield. The younger Jarvan wore a far different crown. His crown was gold as well, but it rose up with tall spikes, reminiscent of dragon's teeth, and for him the arms of his house were carved into a bright blue gem set just above his forehead.

Several years ago, the prince had taken twelve of the Dauntless Vanguard's best men and led them south towards the Great Barrier. For two years there had been no word from the prince or any of his men, and there'd been no word of them either, save for strange stories too fantastic to be believed. Near the end of the two years, though none but the closest to him could have recognized it, Jarvan III, king and father, had begun to slip into despair.

How long would the prince remain absent?

Did the prince even yet live?

But then, one day, he returned. Unannounced, he arrived at the gates of the city, armor decorated in trophies of defeated beasts unknown to the civilized world. His eyes had been distant, cold even, compared to what they'd been before. With him were two of the men he'd departed with, and a strange half-woman, half-dragon, creature that called itself Shyvana.

To much fanfare, he marched through the streets of the city, up towards the palace, to greet his father.

The celebrations had lasted for weeks. By the time they were over, most had already begun to forget the prince's absence. He was a Demacian, the heir of the Crown and the State, and Demacia was whole with him returned. To those who did not know him, it was as if he had never left.

To those who did know him though -

His closest childhood friends, even, to some degree, Garen Crownguard, found themselves frustrated in their attempts to reach him. He preferred to confide in and seek counsel only from the three with whom he'd returned, much to the dismay of the court.

The two soldiers they hailed as heroes. The half-dragon, on the other hand, despite now being a member of Jarvan IV's personal guard, was not welcome in the halls of power. She was too strange, too different, too much a beast in the eyes of civilization. Though Shyvana was a member of the court in name, Fiora had not seen her in weeks. It was only through Intelligence Corps reports that Fiora knew the half-dragon was spending time in the guardhouses of the city wall with Galio, Durand's creation. She could be summoned if needed, but she otherwise kept herself apart. Such had been case for some time now.

In another life, perhaps, Fiora thought that she might have been friends with the half-dragon. Fiora knew the pain of being an outcast all too well. But this was not that other life. She could not afford to tarnish her reputation, the standing of her house, by being anywhere near Shyvana. She hoped that Jarvan IV had gained enough wisdom on his travels to ignore the pressure of rumors and offer the half-dragon some comfort. He was the crown prince. If anyone could push against the weight of the court's petty judgements, it must surely be him. But it was not Fiora's affair to meddle in.

While Fiora was lost in thought, the king and his company had advanced to the throne and were now ascending.

Also with the king was Xin Zhao, his seneschal, and Garen Crownguard, the commander of the Dauntless Vanguard and Jarvan IV's childhood best friend.

While Garen Crownguard was in the running for the title of most boring man in Demacia, Xin Zhao was something else entirely.

Xin Zhao had served Jarvan II, and now Jarvan III, and, if age was kind, would likely serve Jarvan IV when he became king as well. Given the current political situation, it escaped no one's attention that he had been raised in Ionia before being captured and made a Noxian slave gladiator. Though he had recused himself on the decision to allow the Noxian delegation to attempt negotiations, everyone knew that he, above even Chancellor of State Daveth Crownguard, had the king's ear on all things.

Near the throne, Jarvan III had turned towards the assembled nobles and the restless and impatient Noxians. He lifted his hand, palm, up, indicating that the assembled should rise. They did so dutifully, their movements accompanied by the rustle of cloth. In a powerful voice, the voice of the Crown, the king began a welcome speech.

To Fiora's ears, even said with all the grandness of the State, Jarvan III's words were wooden and hollow, written by a diplomat, and devoid of sincerity. It was only by the arguments of the Ionian ambassadors, led by the young Ionian sergeant Lito Zelos, that the Noxians had been allowed to come to the capital. Ionia needed the treaty, not Demacia, and while Jarvan III had committed the state to Ionia's protection, he was no more enthused than any other Demacian noble.

For Ionia's sake, Fiora hoped that the king's disdain would not jeopardize the potential treaty.

For Demacia's sake, even. Since agreeing to the summit with the Noxians, the ambassador from Bandle City had left the city in disgust. Though Demacians weren't exactly fond of yordles, they did a good deal of trade with the yordle city state and most of the more competent members of the court respected Poppy, called the Iron Ambassador for her courage and raw willpower. What was more, she was good friends with general Florin Berell. Though he was not of the Great Houses, his assent would be politically necessary for any changes along the Noxian front in the east. It would be unfortunate to have created so much strife for nothing.

As for the other city states – Piltover claimed to have no stake in the negotiations and had sent an observer instead of an ambassador. That their chosen observer was as anti-Noxian as they came, however, could not have been a coincidence. In the weeks leading up to the Noxian arrival, Ezreal had hardly shut up about how much he hated Noxians. Fiora wished the thoroughly obnoxious and intolerably arrogant young man would either spend more time studying with Demacia's mages, or more time mooning after the poor Crownguard girl who'd had the misfortune of catching his attention, or – or anything such that he stayed out of the way.

Though none of the warring Freljordian clans could spare the resources to keep anyone of importance in Demacia, a letter from the Avarosan king and his queen had made it abundantly clear how poorly they thought of the decision to negotiate with the Noxians. It was to be expected. The Avarosans, the only clan with which Demacia regularly dealt, had been fighting a sporadic war with Noxus across the steppes of the southern Freljord for years.

Up on the dais, Jarvan III finished his droning welcome speech. Hardly sparing the Noxians a glance, he descended again, and headed back towards the great doors, accompanied by Xin Zhao.

Were she not at court, Fiora would have frowned to herself. Was the king going out of his way to kill the negotiations before they even began? Why was he not staying?

The prince, and his Crownguard dog, however, were staying. Once the great doors of the hall had closed on his father's back, Jarvan IV signaled the beginning of festivities with a curt wave of his hand. He himself took a seat on his father's throne and Garen moved to stand behind him.

The house with the least standing, House Buvelle, were the first to move. Dressed in a slightly wider array of colors than the other houses, almost to the point of being gaudy, they seemed to have the most life in them out of all in the gallery. After a moment, it was clear to Fiora that the Buvelles had purpose to their motion. They were clearing an area near the corner of the hall.

Fiora spied a flash of bright blue hair and in an instant she knew what the Buvelles were doing. A half second later, Sona Buvelle began to play.

As soft music washed over the nobles of the Great Houses, it was as if the tension of having Noxians present seeped away, carried off by the notes of Sona's etwahl. Though many nobles worried about the power Sona's music seemed to have over the hearts of listeners, Lestara Buvelle's pet daughter – another Ionian transplant in the Demacian court - certainly had her uses.

Fiora glanced up toward the Noxians. Would they resist?

The general, Darius, certainly looked like he was trying to. Even from a distance it was obvious that his jaw was clenched tightly as if he were in pain. Katarina Du Couteau, the nominal leader of the Noxian delegation, looked less like she was hurt and more like she wanted to hurt someone. The reports from the convoy that had traveled with the Noxians to the capital said that the elder Du Couteau sister was sour about the mission, though her presence seemed to have personal motivations, and it had been a topic of argument all the way from the border to the palace.

The younger Du Couteau sister, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease with the music and the court and the ball and, based on the way the rest of the uniformed delegation was watching her, they would take their cues from her.

So at least there was that.

Fiora herself was certainly not immune to Sona Buvelle's music. The notes worked their way into her chest and where they warmed her. They made her want to move, to talk. She'd experienced Sona's etwahl before. It was like having a drink without actually have to have a drink. It made people more friendly, more sociable. It was quite convenient and Fiora was perfectly willing to go along with it.

On a whim – a justifiable whim, she was a head of the Intelligence Corps – Fiora turned towards Shauna Vayne. The hunter was still standing nearby. She was managing to look even more uncomfortable than she'd looked before. Who would have guessed such a thing to be possible?

Encouraged by the etwahl, Fiora offered a polite smile of greeting. "Shauna Vayne?" she asked.


End file.
